My son is poised midair, limbs frozen in a jump that has lifted him high off our bed. His arms are flung outward as his hands coil around something invisible. Platinum hair, straight as sun, is temporarily weightless. It creates a halo around a face so beautiful that a soul can become lost in its’ perfection. His movement and energy can’t be caught by the simple technology of a camera lens, so his edges are blurred. Inhuman, perfect, and miraculously still for one moment before returning to earth . He is ready to resume the journey that none of us chose, yet all of us will make.

He is never still. He moves in the direction dictated by his momentary desires , unable to stop. Joy leads to fury in cyclic nuclear explosions he can’t control. Like a microscope focusing in the wrong direction, his view of the world is never clear. Connor has autism.

His eyes, blue as sky, gaze with too much intensity for a boy so small. All that power and energy can not be contained. Eventually, it will burst through sheetrock and windows as his body grows stronger. When too much hair has been pulled out, the knives have been hidden yet again, and the bites sink too deeply into flesh, he will have to be sent away. Family will leave him at a special school and return home to begin repairs. Walls and windows will once again be whole, but family continues to bleed , even when scars cover the wounds.