Brake Repair

"You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself." -Galileo Galilei

The school district is currently re-evaluating Ben for special education services—a process that is required every three years. A variety of evaluation methods are used, including parent-reports. So a couple of weeks ago I sat down to answer 86 questions with Never, Sometimes or Often on a Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function as part of the process. I asked Maggie to go through the questions with me to offer her opinions as someone who has lived with Ben for nearly two years and to provide a sounding board for my perceptions as well. Many questions made us snicker and wish for an “Always” option, but question #55, “Has trouble putting the brakes on his/her actions,” caused me to turn to Maggie completely aghast and say, “Hold on. Ben came with brakes? Good lord—why didn’t anyone tell me? Those don't work at all! I need to get those looked at!”

Maggie chuckled and said, “Yes Lori. They’re standard equipment, but I guess it makes sense you wouldn’t have realized it. Lucy’s don’t work either.” Then it was my turn to chuckle. “I guess you’re right,” I said, cocking my head to one side and gazing up at the ceiling, lost in thoughts of my brakeless children careening through life at terrifying speed, wondering where they got such defective parts. Then Maggie jolted me back to reality when she cleared her throat and I realized she was staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Yours don’t work either.”

And I started to say, “What on earth are you talking about?” with just the right amount of righteous indignation, but the words stuck in my throat when my mind flashed to my illustrious, half-baked college career that I insisted must take place 1,200 miles from home for absolutely no logical reason, my (count them) three marriages, my take-no-prisoners mission to have children after the scare of losing an ovary at the age of 30, and more recently the 400 puzzle pieces I hand-cut for an Autism Awareness display at school (my hand still hurts a little) - just to name a few. Frankly, it was a dizzying array of images.

So instead of an indignant, “What on earth are you talking about?” I went with a nearly-imperceptible head-nod and, “Huh.”


It seems my brakes don’t work either and I might just be the last person to realize it. Who knew answering 86 questions about my autistic son’s behavior (and a good-natured barb from my keenly insightful roommate) would help me discover something new about myself.

And now that I realize they're broken, I should probably get my brakes looked at. Or not. I'm pretty proud of the awareness raised with those puzzle pieces and their accompanying autism fact-sheet.


And that take-no-prisoners mission to have kids after a health scare? That worked out pretty well too.