Richard spent (he claims it was just half an hour, but I swear it was a lot longer than that) last night talking to me about lucid dreaming. When he had finished reading choice chapters from one of the many books he is currently reading on the subject, he moved to the copious notes he’s taken. When it was all over, after I had learned that certain molecules along with serotonin are released producing a “dream state,” after he had finished hypothesizing how Emma’s “autism” seems somewhat similar to the dream state he’s been reading about, one in which our senses are jumbled and different than in our “waking” state, after he had finished telling me about his own theories, questions, thoughts and opinions, he said, “What do you think?”
My brain, a jumbled mess of information, bursting with an overflow of information ranging from the physical to the metaphysical to quantum physics to quantum mechanics was in no state to produce meaningful additions to the topic at hand. Science was never a subject that captivated me, unlike my mother and two of my brothers – one’s a physicist, the other a bio-chemist. Clearly the science genes were used up on them and by the time I came along there just weren’t any left. Never-the-less, I did my best to formulate some kind of not-too-ridiculous-comments, which I only prayed related to all that he’d been talking about. As I did this, I looked over at him and felt overwhelmed. Not by the subject matter, though I admit, I did feel a bit overwhelmed by that too, but I am referring to the feeling I felt. It was the same way I felt when I first met Richard. It was as though I was falling in love all over again. Not that I had fallen out of love, more like just falling deeper or maybe it’s more accurate to say I felt myself aware that I continue to fall, that I’ve never really hit the bottom, there’s not been a stopping, that it’s a continuous falling in love that doesn’t end. There was something about the look on his face, a certain intensity, his brain whirling around with all of this information, his trying to make sense of our Emma, the studying, the research, his ability to see things differently, his way of being in this world, yet always searching for other ways to view it…
I love that man.
No one could have told me that when we had our two children, I would end up loving my husband more than I already did. No one could have described to me the feeling of gratitude I would feel on a daily basis toward this man who has been as actively involved in child-rearing as I have. No one could have told me any of that.
And if they had, I wouldn’t have believed them.
For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to: Emma’s Hope Book
Emma's Hope Book 