FINDING DAD

1 Corinthians 2:9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him."

The grass is beginning to grow and cover the earth. Beneath it, a few feet down, is my husband's casket. Only a flag and its holder, placed there three weeks ago, marks the spot. It is time, I tell myself, to order the grave marker, another step on my widow's walk.

I've asked the kids their opinions. Dennis had none, just names and dates. Bonnie wants John 3:16, Ron's favorite verse, and an eagle for Ron's favorite team. Allen, whose presence on the autism spectrum has made his father's death a difficult concept to grasp, has refused to respond. 

But that was three weeks ago. Allen and I have had a good--but busy--day. With a school holiday courtesy of All Saints Day, we have managed to make our way through a long list of errands. Allen even got his hair cut, a task that was daunting back in June but which he now takes in stride. He even accepted a different barber, telling Rachel how he wanted his hair cut and politely shaking her hand
and thanking her when she was done. 

We are driving past Long Croft Cemetery, our trunk full of groceries, the last of our errands completed. Allen, who finds social interactions taxing, is already half-asleep in the passenger seat. But it's been a good day--such a good day--and I feel I can push him just a little more.

"I'm going to order Dad's grave marker on Monday," I say and motion to the cemetery.

"I'm not coming," he murmurs. There is a sigh and a pause. "Why do people do that."

"Do what?"

"Put--you know--markers on people's graves. What's the point?"

Those on the ASD spectrum tend to think in terms of absolutes. What would be a concrete reason I can give? "Well," I say, "I think it's so families can find where their loved one is buried. So they can bring flowers. So they know where they are." I push a little more. "So we'll know where Dad is."

"Dad's not there," Allen says quietly. "Just his old, broken body is there."

I feel a lump in my throat. The fine art of magical thinking has convinced Allen that his father would come back if only he found the right formula. For thirteen weeks after Ron's death, Allen and I spent every Saturday hunting for clues, looking for Ron. We visited Linvilla Orchards and found the strongest horse, sprinkling a few hairs from Ron's brush along the path. We located the tallest tree at Rosetree Park, wrapping a ribbon around its trunk. We explored the oldest bridge at Smedley Park, leaving one of his father's shirts behind. Marking spots where Ron might return. We waited at the station for a train that never came and for two weeks used Google Earth to track the route of a ship on the Delaware with a mysterious symbol that, said Allen, "meant something."

Allen didn't find his father, but he found a way to the other side of his grief. Two weeks ago, the magical journeys ceased. Allen said he was transferring his "sad memories" about his father's last, painful year into his newest and strongest sword. He was done, he said, looking for Dad.

And it seems to have worked. In the last two weeks, any conversation about Ron has been happy: the way he loved to play board games but always cheated, his booming laugh and warm hugs, his crazy dance movements known in the family as "doing the Ronnie."

Autism grief is not neuro-typical grief. Allen has needed time to figure it out. I have tried to be wise enough to let him. We seemed to have arrived at a good place. But it's been a good day, a really good day, so I venture one more question.

"If Dad's not at the cemetery and he's not on the boat and he's not on the train, where is he?"

Autism grief is not neuro-typical grief. But with enough time, enough magic, enough faith, and enough love, we can all find what we need.

My son looks at me with tears in his eyes. "Well," he says, "sometimes I like to pretend he's across the street at the firehouse, talking to the guys. Because that helps me. But," and he lets a few tears fall, "I know he's in heaven. And I know he's okay."

And Allen, too, will be okay.

VOICES FROM THE EDGE: Waiting for Dad

"As it was in the beginning, now and ever shall been
world without end. Do we get more comfort than that?"
                                          
                                          Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Allen jumps out of the car, excitement in his step. "The train's coming!" he says. "It worked!" And for a slice of one instant I am nonplussed: it can't be real. My son runs along the sidewalk next to the train track, rushing towards the station where a gray-haired woman waits with a suitcase.

I lower the window on the passenger side of my Nissan, letting the early autumn breeze carry in the sounds and scents of the incoming train. The lady smiles at my son.

"Waiting for someone?" I hear her ask.

"My dad," Allen says. He bounces from one foot to another.

"You must be excited to see him," she says. "Has he been away long?"

But Allen is suddenly bereft of words to explain, so he merely nods. As the train brakes with a screech, he moves away.

I watch him from the driver's seat of my car. Despite Allen's dedication the last eight weeks to the art of magical thinking, I know his father will not be on the train. I take three deep breaths, a calming strategy I have used often. I can't let myself get upset now; Allen will need me.

The train comes to a halt and a conductor jumps down, taking the suitcase from the gray-haired lady and helping her up the metal steps. Allen stands to the side, watching closely.

No one gets off the train.

"Help you, sir?" asks the conductor.

"I thought my dad would be on this train," Allen says in a rush. "We did everything right, Mom and me. This was the train."

The conductor looks up and down the length of the train. "Maybe he took another train," he says.

"He was supposed to be on the 906," says my son.

"Ah, that's the problem," says the conductor. "This is the 730."

Allen, dejected, hangs his head and saunters slowly back to the car. I take another deep breath. We have been back to Smedly Park to check the shirt Allen left hanging on a branch; we have found the biggest tree at Rosetree; we've found the strongest horse at Linvilla. In the eight weeks since Ron died--passing away peacefully in his easy chair--my youngest son, who has high functioning autism (Asperger's Syndrome) has handled a variety of "scrambled emotions" (Indiana University, 2019). He's had trouble sleeping, is vigilant about locks and dead bolts, and insists on wearing the same shirt he wore the night his father died. Each of my three children--Dennis, Bonnie, Allen--has had to find their own ways to grieve the loss of their father, but the issue for Allen is compounded by his brain's atypical function, making the finality of death hard to accept.

According to Dr. Tony Attwood, a noted expert on Asperger's Syndrome, an increase in spectrum behaviors helps the neuro-atypical keep calm and block negative thoughts. Allen's belief that his father will come back if he follows a certain procedure of carefully designed steps is called "magical thinking," a psychological concept that protects the thinker from the unthinkable. Writing in The Seven Laws of

Magical Thinking (2012), author Matthew Hutson contends that such thoughts provide an evolutionary advantage, encouraging us to be more participatory in life if we have some control over the outcomes.

At its most simplistic, "magical thinking" is a form of bargaining such as Audry Huff displayed during the 2010 World Series when he wore the same red underwear for every game, convinced it helped the San Francisco Giants win. Writer Joan Didion (2005) used magical thinking to recover from the sudden death of her husband, John Dunne. It took Didion two years to realize that any amount of bargaining would not bring her husband back. Life continues it's cycle. She learned to find comfort in that. 

For Allen, it's only been two months. He slides back into the car. "Wrong train," he says and sighs. "I'm doing everything I can to bring him back. I don't know why it's not working.

I speak carefully, aware that while I grieve for the man Ron was before the car accident stole so much from him 19 years ago, Allen grieves for the only father he's ever known. "Maybe he's not ready to come back," I say. "Maybe he has somewhere else to be."

"Why wouldn't he want to come back to us?" my son asks.

I shake my  head. "I don't know, Allen. But I know he was tired of being sick."

Allen nods and I know he is fighting back tears. I reach across the car console and touch his shoulder, expecting him to flinch. He does not. Then he starts to laugh.

"It would be just like Dad," he says, "to get on the wrong train." He says it without judgment. "He always needed you to tell him what to do."

I smile, conceding his point. "So, what now? Do we wait for another train?"

"No. We need to check again next week."

"Okay," I say and put the car in gear. Each Saturday brings another magical outing. We pull out onto Rose Valley Road. I venture another thought. "Maybe he's not coming back."

Allen's shoulders sag as he considers the possibility. "Maybe," he whispers. 

There is silence in the car. I take a few more deep breaths, telling myself that in time Allen will accept his father's death.

"I just can't stop trying yet," says Allen. "Not yet. It's too soon." And it is too soon,

only eight weeks into the rest of our lives without Ron. 

"Okay," I say.

We drive down Rose Valley Road, past the college where Allen-despite having special needs--earned an associates degree in technology and Ron proudly clapped as his son received his degree.  I spy Hedgerow Theater where Ron and I saw "A Christmas Carol" and "Noises Off" and "Our Town." I make a right onto Brookhaven Road and we drive by the house where Ron grew up. We are all the way to Bridgewater when Allen speaks again.

"I just want him to know much much we miss him," he says with a sigh.

"He knows," I tell Allen. "I tell him every morning and every night."

"Me, too," whispers my son. And this time he is the one who reaches across the console and pats my shoulder. 

VOICES FROM THE EDGE: The Art of Magical Thinking

You will go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.

Isaiah 55:12

I am at my desk, editing a dissertation for a client, when Allen slides a piece of white paper to me. Before I turn to my son, I put on my "I-believe-anything you say" face. "Hi," I say.

"This will be Dad's new body," he says and taps the paper.


"Oh." I study the sketch he has made. The facial features are blurred, but the outline has broad shoulders, muscular arms, a slim waist, long and rugged legs, slender feet. It is clearly human, but I know certain attributes have been influenced by the places we have visited in the past two weeks: the tallest tree at Rosetree Park, the strongest horse at Linvilla Orchards, the oldest bridge at Smedly, the fastest speed skater we could find on Wikipedia.

This is magical thinking at its best and most concrete, Allen's firm belief that if he can just concoct the right ingredients, his recently deceased father will come back again in a new body, one not broken by illness.

It began with the trees of the field.

Allen, who lives on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum and grapples with a world that is too loud, too bright, and too overwhelming, came in from the Plaza down the street one day last week and said to me, "The trees are whispering Dad's name."

"That's nice," I said. "God made the trees and Dad is now with God."

He gave me a curious look. "Not yet," he told me.

"But you know Dad died. You know he went to Heaven and God gave him a new body."

Allen nods. "I know. But I also know that Dad fooled death before. Maybe he can do it again. Remember?"

I remember. The night of the car accident, the surgeon who put the pieces of Ron back together again said to me, "Your husband is a strong man. Only a strong man could survive that." Time and time again in the last nineteen years, surgery after surgery, Ron defied the odds. Until on July 13th, he didn't.

I try to reason with Allen. "But you saw Dad at the funeral. You were there when we buried his body."

My son nods. "That was his OLD body. He didn't need it anymore. This," and he taps on the paper, "is his NEW body."


I get it, or at least I try to. Even before Joan Didion wrote her landmark book on grieving, A Year of Magical Thinking, the strategy Allen is using was a known anthropological concept. In short, it is the belief that a series of actions--performed carefully and in order--will result in a desired event. It is an illusion of control sorely needed by my son, to whom the forever loss of his father is just too much to accept.

And that's where magical thinking comes in. According to St. James, Handelman, and Taylor (2011), magical thinking provides a connection to what has been broken and helps the thinker cope with cultural expectations of control. During the days between Ron's death and his funeral, Allen needed to hold himself together, shaking hands and accepting hugs, saying "thank you" to those who expressed their condolences. 

All the kids miss their father keenly, but Dennis and Bonnie have their adult lives, their jobs, their partners. Dad was an everyday fixture to Allen, a large presence in his life. It's left a gaping hole. It's not the same with just the two of us, he complains. Hard to play Monopoly with only two people. I murmur in agreement.


"So, just how does all this work?" I asked Allen on Wednesday as we trudged through Smedly Park in the rain. I breathed a sigh of relief when I remembered where the old stone railroad trestle was. Allen needed something "old and stone that was from ancient times." It was ancient enough for him, part of my ancient childhood. 

Allen whirled and faced me quickly, tears in his eyes.  "You can't ask about it," he said. "You just have to let it happen. You just have to believe."

And I do. I believe that any amount of magical thinking will not bring back Allen's father, but I also believe that at this moment it helps Allen to feel safety in an unsafe world (Philosophy Talk, 2018). Every time he proposes a new expedition we need to take that is part of his carefully constructed script towards designing Ron's new body, I remind myself that autism grief is not neurotypical grief (Fisher, 2012.)

In a way, we're all guilty of a little magical thinking. Is his insistence that he hears his father's name in the leaves of the trees any different from Joan Didion's inability to part with a pair of her late husband's shoes because he would need them when he came back? Of if he thinks his father will have a new body with the strength of a horse far off from the lady at the bank who told me that each morning she wakes up and smells the breakfast her husband, gone 17 years, made every morning?

You just have to believe. I believe Ron is no longer in pain. I believe he is happy in Heaven. I believe I will see him again. 

And sometimes, I hear the trees whisper his name.