This One Goes to 11

Yesterday was Ben’s 11^th birthday.  How is it possible 11 years have gone by since I held that baby in my arms and dreamed big dreams for him?

I’ve shared a lot of Ben with you over the years. His loves, his quirks, his fascinating brain and his befuddling (and often hilarious) behavior. I love his beautiful spirit and the wonderful weirdness he brings to our lives. I’ve shared stories about his love of music, his legendary iPod and his encyclopedic knowledge of all that resides thereon. I’ve shown you his lists and chronicled the adventures of his beloved Lego Guy. I once told you how he labeled with Post-Its all the spaces in our house when we moved in with the Crandells and showed you months later when I found the last sticky-note still stuck under the dining room table. It read, “Under Table.” I’ve been nearly run out of Facebook-Land on a rail for recounting his obsession with a truly creepy scary clown mask (mostly because I insist of photographing it, scaring the bejeezus out of unsuspecting visitors to my Facebook page).

But when I was considering what to write for Ben’s 11^th birthday, I started thinking I had nothing left to share. And then he forgot to take his binder to school today. He texted asking me to bring it to him and when I saw the binder lying on floor in his room, I knew exactly what to write.

Earlier this year, after watching the Oscars, Ben Googled, made a list and then printed a small picture of the movie poster for every Best Picture Oscar winner since the Academy Awards began in 1929. When he started the project he told me he wanted to decorate his binder with them. I pictured a sheet of paper (or more likely two) with several small images inserted into the clear sleeve on the front of his binder. I thought maybe he’d trade out the two sheets from time to time to display different posters. He did, in fact, print several images on each sheet, but then he meticulously cut them apart until he had 84 mini movie posters, each one about 1 ½” tall x 1” wide.

Every day he displays one (and only one) of the mini movie posters in the front sleeve of his binder. One barely-larger-than-postage-stamp sized image on the front of a binder that measures 10.5” x 11”.  Today: “A Man for All Seasons,” Best Picture winner in 1966. I have no idea where he keeps the 83 others not currently in use, but I have no doubt I’ll find out when I pack up his room this weekend.

Ben is not the 11-year-old I thought I’d have and my dreams for him have certainly changed over the years. But those dreams have by no means become smaller, because Ben is so much more—so much “bigger”—than the 11-year-old I naively imagined when I held that baby in my arms all those years ago (his diminutive binder decorations aside).

The Day the Music Died: Reflecting on Kindness, Generosity and Giving

I feel very lucky to be able to say that there are times in my life when I’ve been utterly overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of family, friends and even people I don’t know. One of those times was the day a couple of years ago when Ben’s beloved iPod crashed.

It just stopped working – inexplicably and without fanfare. In a perfect world, the iPod would have been properly set up with my computer so that this would be a minor, if expensive, inconvenience. But sadly, I am not inherently technologically-minded. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. The music was preserved. All of it on my computer as it should be. But the play lists… those all-important, mean-everything-in-the-world-to-him, cannot-live-without-them play lists…were gone. I’m not sure how many – he never calmed down enough to tell me, but probably close to 100 lists.

The kind, young employee at the Apple Store looked like he might cry right along with me when he broke the news that he couldn’t recover any data from the device. I had already told him a bit about Ben and explained just what the iPod (and more importantly, the play lists) meant to him. He gave me a brand new iPod on the spot without blinking an eye, even though he could see the broken iPod had been dropped a time or two. He never once pointed out that Apple wasn’t obligated to replace it because of the obvious damage. He then spent 20 minutes helping me pick out the perfect case to protect the new iPod without covering too much of the face because Ben needs to be able to run his thumb over the face for comfort.

Armed with a new iPod (courtesy of the kindness of the sympathetic Apple Store employee) and all Ben’s music, I sent an e-mail plea to pretty much everyone I knew asking for play lists. I had it in my mind that if Ben saw something – anything – when he clicked on “Play Lists”, it would begin to calm him, even if they weren’t his beloved lists. The play lists began rolling in. It seemed as if people literally dropped what they were doing to help with our dilemma. I could almost hear the collective, “Holy crap! Ben Heagler’s iPod crashed,” all across the country.

Some people burned their lists to CDs and mailed them so that I wouldn’t have to purchase the music. One friend sent an iTunes gift card along with her list. A local friend who had burned his play lists to CDs (five of them – one from each member of his family) even offered to drive them to my house. The response was amazing, overwhelming, and quite frankly, beautiful.

I could only work on the lists when Ben was asleep because (a) he wouldn’t let the iPod out of his hands during waking hours, and (b) if he saw me working on the lists on my computer, his already sky-high anxiety level would creep even higher. So every night, I waited until Ben was asleep and began working on the project around 9:30. For about a month, I was as sleep deprived as I’ve been in my life (including when the kids were infants). But every morning when he woke up and saw that play lists had been added to his iPod, Ben’s anxiety level came down a notch. Slowly, but surely, things returned to normal.

Roughly two years later, Ben has added dozens of his own play lists to this iPod. But the lists from these wonderful friends, each one named for its donor, remain very special to us. These play lists remind us of how incredibly giving and generous people can be. They remind us that there are people out there willing to help – that we are not alone.

A couple of days ago, I was treated to another wonderful example of kindness and generosity. My good friend, Terri, knew Lucy and Ben were receiving a Wii from Santa Claus this year. Out of the blue, she sent me a text wanting to know if I’d be interested in a free Guitar Hero game. Of course I said yes and Terri delivered it to me the very next day.

A friend of hers, whom I have never met, had purchased the game for someone else and for whatever reason, ended up not giving it to them. When I called this stranger to thank her for her generosity, she seemed genuinely surprised to receive my call. I told her what a huge treat the game would be for my children. I told her what a stretch it had been on our budget to buy the game system and that they would have waited perhaps another year to receive such a nice game to go with it. She said simply that she wanted someone to enjoy it and that Terri had told her a bit about my family and that she was happy to do it.

These are just two of the times in my life that I have been deeply touched by people’s kindness. Two instances of simple kindness, simple generosity and the simple act of giving.

Simply amazing.

Recently Added

Even though Ben’s official diagnosis is Autism, it’s been pretty clear for some time he’s an Asperger’s kid. Asperger’s Syndrome is a form of high-functioning autism characterized by, among other things, a preoccupation with a particular subject of interest. Simply put, almost all Asperger’s kids have a “thing”. Something they like to do above all else - something about which they could talk or read seemingly endlessly. (I realize many typically-developing kids also have a “thing”, but trust me when I tell you, an Asperger’s kid’s dedication to his “thing” goes beyond typical.) Music has been Ben’s “thing” since he was about three years old.

By his fourth birthday, he had begun carrying around collections of CDs – for fun, for stress relief, for a feeling of security. The CDs were everything to him. He would listen to them endlessly, memorize the lyrics and the order of songs, line them up on the floor and generally obsess over them as he is known to do. The collection would change from time to time, but it grew pretty steadily in numbers until it became impractical for Ben to carry them around without disastrous results from dropping them, misplacing one, accidentally tearing the jewel-case insert or any number of other calamities.

Knowing this obsession was not likely to fade, we bought Ben his first iPod for his fourth birthday. It was a blue “Mini” (a model no longer made) and it was designed to hold around 1,000 songs. The Mini served us well. Ben no longer had to carry around the CDs themselves and it was huge relief for the whole family. A couple of years later, the Mini was well beyond its capacity with 1,170 songs, each one hand-selected by Ben, and it was time to upgrade. Ben put a new iPod on his Christmas wish list, but he was very concerned about Santa’s ability to transfer his songs and playlists.

I did my best to reassure him, but I must admit I was terrified when it came time to clone Ben’s Mini onto the 80gig Classic iPod Santa would be leaving under the tree. I checked the song count on the Mini before I began because I knew Ben would notice immediately if there were fewer songs. But when the cloning procedure was done, I had 1,217 songs on the new iPod - 47 more than were on the Mini. I wasn’t overly concerned because Ben is always happy to have new music. After some investigation, I found that a random sampling of songs had been pre-loaded on the new iPod. And those, along with some music from the computer I used to do the cloning, made up the 47 new songs. I was sure it would be fine.

Ben was thrilled to discover the new iPod under the tree that year and was absolutely beside himself that Santa had put all his music on it and his beloved playlists. As is usually the case on Christmas morning, there was a general air of holiday chaos that day - new toys with which to play, a mountain of trash from unwrapped gifts and Christmas dinner to be prepared. Ben took his new iPod and disappeared into the office for the rest of the day. I checked on him a few times and he said he was making a playlist – a perfectly normal thing for Ben to do. A few times throughout the day, he left the office and wandered about the house, head bent over his new iPod while he scrolled through the songs. Then he would disappear back into the office. Honestly, this was not particularly unusual behavior for Ben so I didn’t think much of it, except that he did it all day long, which did seem a bit odd (but only a bit).

Finally, around dinner time, Ben brought me a typed playlist entitled “Recently Added” and asked if I would create the playlist on his new iPod. At first glance, the songs seemed fairly random, so I asked him if they were anything special. He said “These are the extra songs Santa added to my iPod.” It was only then that I noticed the playlist was 47 songs long. Upon closer examination, I realized these were the 47 songs on the new iPod that had not been on the old iPod Mini. Ben had scrolled through all 1,217 song titles and identified each new song to compile the list.

I asked Ben if it was OK with him that Santa added those 47 songs. He replied “Sure, mom - Santa rocks.”

Indeed he does, Ben. As do you.