Most popular kid in town

Friday was Luke’s graduation from 9 weeks of Life skills training. After weeks of driving back and forth to visit him, we were more than ready to make that final trip. We started that drive while the leaves were still green and now the foliage has come and gone. The traffic was heavy but steady. I64 pass Charlottesville was a hint of heaven. Painted on the roadside canvas were layers of mountains above and fields and valley beneath. It was a capture of untouched perfection. I gasp at its picturesque beauty every time we pass through.

The campus was still quiet with families walking around, cameras on their shoulders and luggage dragging behind ready for a day of joy and memory. We came unprepared as usual, except for our son. It’s been a tiring 9-week weekend commute and we were ready to wrap things up and close this chapter. There were a few bumps on the road, but he had indeed done it. As I recalled on those emergency phone calls from him and sometimes even the school, I had only one desire to pack up and go.


Luke had informed us that he would be playing piano as prelude to the graduation, which was the only reason why we were there Friday. We had to cancel a business meeting for him to fulfill this engagement. He has been doing music almost all his life, so this was no biggie. He did his thing, in a big and noisy auditorium with people chattering away and coming in and out. Piano playing in a rehab facility of a small town at some remote mountain side of Virginia was no performance in Carnegie Hall. From afar being almost buried by a gigantic grand piano, he looked small and unnoticeable, as was his playing, surfacing on and off above the noises. We didn’t mind. Our goal was to get it over with and head home.

Finally came the certificate awarding time. One by one students were called. From the cheering of the audience (most of them being the students still going through the programs), you could tell how some were the “in” kids more than the others. The honest and genuine rally brought a smile on my face. Our two “special bundles of joy” were never among the “in’s’ – they were “special” as in Special-ED. Still, the joy from both givers and receivers was infectious; it warms your heart in its simplest form of support and encouragement. The last name called was Luke. At the sound of his name, the auditorium was boomed with unexpected shouts of cheers from the audience. I was startled – not by its volume but by the lightening realization that our boy was in fact the “in-kid”. Emotions rushed in as I watched our autistic son walking up to take his certificate, his composure unaffected as always in the midst of all commotion. I have done it a million times, but there I was again, motionless and speechless, uncovering the most remarkable, untainted soul of all souls in that little frame of 5’ 5’’. We have found treasure in this child for all his 22 years of life and hoped for the rest of the world to reach the same estimation. And it was accomplished there, not exactly the remotest part or the ends of the earth, but far enough from a world of so-called “normalcy”.

As we drove back, passing the same mountains and valleys, there rang in my heart was this awe struck revelation that the closest place to heaven was not outside, but inside. He was right beside us, all happy and content. Radio was playing Christmas carols, his favorite thing. Next to him was his biggest fan and another favorite, his daddy, carrying on a million times with their same iterations only those two appreciate. He was staring outside with a smile on his angelic face at the highway signs, his most favorite. There reflected from those eyes was a world beyond our imagination. I needed not know what it was, but I would put a bet there and then that he is not only the most popular kid in town, but also in our world inside of this car and the one above.