Since Autism makes your sensory system go haywire and, at least for J, makes your understanding of emotions, your own and other's, difficult at best, it becomes necessary to learn to love. I'm not talking about learning how to know love or even how to experience love. It's really knowing how to express love and/or receive it.
Many mom's from the beginning of their children's lives give kisses. Kisses to the cheek, kisses to the forehead, kisses to the chubby feet, kisses all over. Children learn to associate that action with love. They then, when they get old enough, go to mom and dad and others they wish to show love to and kiss them. They are regularly admonished to "give kisses" and learn that this is something special.
I have been struck lately by how J and Z express love. J is very tenderhearted and looks out for our well being as well as the well being of many other creatures (mice, bugs, ants, worms, flies, you get the picture) and will defend us/them if he senses they are in danger! I try to keep my bug killing a secret from J, I really think he would consider me a mass murderer if he knew how many poor innocent bugs/spiders/ants/and crawly things I've stepped in in my lifetime. I'm sure he'd have to call the FBI. I take this as a show of love even though J doesn't really say that it is. When he's ready for bed or going to school he comes to me for a kiss. It has to be on his forehead and I have to make sure that I don't miss the forehead or it doesn't count. I really can't remember the last time I was allowed to kiss his cheek. He tells me he loves me and I tell him i love him but I always wonder if my love for him is getting through. You read in the Love Languages book that everyone has a love Language but it feels sometimes like the boys are non-verbal when it comes to my figuring out if they are really able to know that I love them.
Z is the really funny one. I worked with him so much to kiss me when I asked for a kiss. Smack, right on the lips. This has produced some rather humorous side effects. For one thing he only wants to kiss people on the lips now. Fine for us, not so fine for the teachers/aides at school. He's trying so hard to express his appreciation and they instead divert him into a high 5. Poor kid. The other thing that developed was that I could ask for a kiss and his tendency to OCD would compel him to stop what he was doing and come give me a kiss. Here's where I lose the mother of the year award (again) I would take advantage of this weakness to lure him out of situations I didn't want him in. If he was balancing on the banister, I'd ask for a kiss, if he was climbing too high into a tree, I'd ask for a kiss, if he was not obeying my call to come get medicine or to go to bed, I'd ask for a kiss. It was a powerful tool let me tell you. I had some guilt attached to it but managed to talk myself out of the guilt as much as possible. However, all things must end and recently the lure of the kiss has lost it's power. I blame the teachers/aides for coming up with the high 5 idea. I think he figured out there were alternatives and mommy asking for a kiss was more of a suggestion. Sigh.
There is one thing that Z does that I think shows something more is in there, although for me it's really just guessing since we can't sit down and have a heart to heart. He will come up and various times throughout the day and give me a kiss on my cheek. Not my lips, I never ask for these kisses. He just comes up and gives them to me. I was the first one he did this with and just recently he has started doing it with others in his sphere who he feels close to. For me, I take it as an expression of love. It may be wishful thinking, and it may be just another quirky thing that Z does that makes me love him so much, but that's my story and I'm sticking with it.
There are many things that Autism has stolen from me and for the longest time I resented that my children's affection was one of those things. I think what I am learning now is that I just have to look a little harder and a little deeper, and a little more creatively. God is faithful, he had to do the same thing with us.
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