This little guy...

is my youngest brother, Trevor. Smiling through the third year of his life. To the unknowing eye, normal. Perfect. Forever. One two-dimensional sliver in time.

1.20.1996

I PS'ed the yellow digits out (omg where were they?!), so that you, my reader, would field the full force of this picture's face value (heh).

This little guy...

                      is wearing his "I know I'm doing something bad" smile. He is reaching up - not towards the camera, but towards the spectacles resting on the unwary nose behind the lens, otherwise known as Ba-Ba. Such a full-on look into his brown eyes was and still is a laudable feat of rare accomplishment. He much prefers looking at you surreptitiously from the corners of his eyes, averting them should you attempt a more direct gaze. Oppositely charged magnets meet desperate dashboard bobblehead. To further complicate photo documentation, at this age, Trevor was probably still taking the numerous, often ineffective, sedatives to counteract the nervous energy of his hyperactivity and mild aggression. He couldn't take, he had to grab. He couldn't walk, he had to run. To hear the frantic pounding of his feet across the house, followed by the heavier wearier steps of his guardian at the moment - it was the 24/7 job we all tagteamed for, whether we signed up for it or not - was entirely commonplace. So, the chances of us snapping a photograph, preserving the irises of those elusive eyes, that smile that never came on command, completely devoid of any sort of motion blur? It's not entirely unlike trying to capture a family picture with an uncooperative pet dog. This was probably take number 3728912.

This little guy...

                      about a year prior to the taking of this photograph, was diagnosed with classic autism, the most severe of the autism spectrum disorders, which is characterized by lack of language development. For my less-informed reader, autism is an increasingly prevalent developmental disorder that manifests itself in impairments in an individual's communication, social development, and behavior, often accompanied with mental retardation and difficulties in sensory processing. His mental capacity lagged years behind that of his cohorts as did his ability to implement basic living skills. He didn't understand that social etiquette defined these rigorous boundaries called "Yours" and "Mine", that one wasn't supposed to bite down on the bristles when brushing one's teeth, or that swallowing gallons of water during a shower was highly conducive to wetting one's pants later on. Potty training is still a moot point. We've grown accustomed to the staring whispering public, yet...I don't think one ever gets used to shame. His language capacity has teasingly flitted just above the zero mark throughout the years. Ba-ba was one of the only sounds he could make at 3 years old, which thankfully stuck with him for the past 14 years. The only problem is he insists on naming everything Ba-ba. Perhaps the words "insists" and "naming" endow his vocalizations with too much comprehension; it may be more accurate to say that in asking our dad for a slice of pear, he reproduced the sound "Ba-ba", not because he associated it with the fruit or as a vehicle to communicate his desire for it, but because he saw that it had previously brought pleasure to my father and that the prize followed soon afterwards. Still ongoing is the attempt to teach him sign language, writing, typing, icon communication, anything to tune to his frequency. Yet these are still our wavelengths, our music. I have to say that I miss those days when he could call, or at least imitate, the words Jeh-Jeh, much phonetically easier than Sister. Because, tell me, what is relationship without language?

This little guy...

                      was the eye of many storms in our family. The immature jealousies, the well-seasoned tempers, the hidden prides, the open criticisms, the feeble thrashing bellows, and the thundering pointed silences of four scared imperfect people - whose love, faith, patience (how profound, how deeply accurate is the meaning of long-suffering), and sacrifice were just never quite enough - roiled around him, through him, for him, because of him. How many moments have I sat in the quiet aftermath, eyes burning, hating myself because I couldn't love my brother enough, put him above my own foolish sense of entitlement? Familiar are the heart pangs that throbbed as I sat helpless, watching while my parents, weighed down by the same helplessness, retreat behind pain-etched stony faces and misdirected hurtful words. And he sat impassive, unperturbed, unmoved by the emotional whirls, or so it seemed. He dwelled (hid? found solace? was helplessly entrapped?) in a world we weren't allowed to, couldn't access. Impenetrable. From time to time, our impatient hearts would brush faintly against the latched door of his - a fleeting connection, a brief current. I have dreamed fantastically, impossibly, of running down the road towards licensed neurology and somehow, ingeniously, finding the elusive key that turns perfectly in this lock, eagerly wrenching open this shrouded door and then -

what?                       
                                            ...hello?

This little guy...

                      is no longer so little. At 5'4", he can reach for things he's not supposed to be reaching for. At 5'4", he easily makes me the shortest member of our family. It's okay, my friend, I've already accepted it. At 5'4", 17 years of age, he still enjoys biting down on toothbrush bristles (whenever he can make away with one, more often than not while we are cleaning up another chaotic mess of his doing - he's become quite the little strategist) and drinking water straight from the shower head. At 5'4", 17 years of age, he still has trouble dressing himself and telling us when he needs to go to the bathroom. At 5'4", he weighs in at less than 90 pounds, the culmination of autistic stubbornness for routine and familiarity mixed with picky appetite and erratic bowel movements. His legs are only as thick as my forearms, his shoulder blades sharply gaunt, and each of his vertebrae, down to the last little lumbars of his weak, permanently curved spine, greets us uncomfortably against his pale skin each time he prepares for a shower. My mother - his mother - jokes about the probable influx of donations if World Vision ever featured Trevor on one of their ad campaigns. It's really okay if you're not laughing.

Disillusionment is easy, and apathy even more so -

                      - the cheap happiness this world has to offer, the smallish dreams that our hearts toil to build, the fragile peace that we kill and maim to make for ourselves, the imitation love we settle for - these are the things that so tantalize but can never satisfy. It's an inability so overwhelming that humanity has all but perfected its quiet lonely ways out - a resigned popping of the pill, a welcomed pinch of the needle, a decisive pull of the trigger, a quick slice of the blade, an irrevocable jump from the ledge...or treacherously subtle paralysis, a detached "what does it matter?", the invisible straitjacket of feigned flippancy - to numb the want, the lack, the incomplete, the helpless yearning emptiness -

Everything is faded,

like the palpable graying of the room around slipping smiles after the camera flash. Bright and flaring, gilded transience - a name, an entire life, borne only by ticklish wanton wisps of memory, in the swirls of irrelevant blacks and whites, buffeted by the indifferent rushing currents of time. It's a jaded existence spent looking down with furrowed brows and shrunken hearts at the ground, at the dust from which we came, at the blighted yellowed grass crushed beneath our tired feet.

Seeing and hearing engender knowledge. Yet, if knowledge breeds frustration and despair - at the way that the world, that humanity, that we fall short - and from despair, a clawing tumble into the deep rut of cynical inaction, and when the only thing that burns in our dark hearts is this ought not to be, what would it take for us to lift up our eyes? To unclench our fists, to take another step out of these smoldering ruins?

He promises us greener pastures.

If we would look up from our desperate wringing of this world's skein for drops of momentary release, we find that we
                                                       can

rest.

Still standing in the dirt of reality, if we choose to squint a little harder, somehow miraculously, inexorably, 

there is green.

There is real joy in the morning, real dreams built on unbreakable promises, real peace in the tempests, real love in our Shepherd. There is life. There is hope -

- a deluge of living water gushing from the wounds of the Rock,

and we need only to learn to cup our hands.

This little guy...

                      is a gatekeeper. I find him sitting by the same narrow gate he ushered me through whenever I chance a doubting glance backwards, chalk it up to poor deviant memory that I forget that he's there where he's been placed and has never moved. It is interesting though, isn't it, that humans have the forgetful capacity to say "You are good, oh Lord" one moment and scream "Teacher, don't you care if I drown" in the immediate next? In the midst of the shattered pieces that the world so resolutely asserts is the picture of my family, He awakens, arises, and tells me to

Be still. Peace. 

Out of the ensuing silence, there came divinely appointed government help and a surging supernatural strength and patience. Trevor was accepted into a group home close to our own, and all signs pointed to His hand in the process. (His current home is aptly named the Miracle House.) We somehow had the strength to ask for help, to surrender pride and let go of a son - a brother - and in return, received Trevor back with hearts renewed with rest and hope. But that, in itself, was not God entirely.

Out of the deepening expectancy, there came healing and reconciliation with each other, a recognition of our shared humanity, and exceeding joy in the small daily miracles. New perspective taught us sacrifice, deference, and humility. Reflective discussions of Trevor's impact on our lives and old buried wounds brought greater understanding of His brand of quick piercing forgiveness. And alongside it all, Trevor was showing great improvement and a surprising grasp of vocabulary (he can define more words than my mother!). But that, in itself, was not God entirely either.

God
                           was in the still small whisper that simply said

Now come. Follow Me.

This little guy...

                      in his silence, teaches me of language. Throughout the years of flailing gestures, crumpled laminated icons, and long frustrating hours in front of the extra large keyboard, I've realized that in our muted companionship, we've somehow forged our own speechless discourse. It's in the way that he peeks at me from his sofa when I come home after a long absence, and the brilliant grin that slowly, slowly blossoms over his face remains my favorite welcome home, I've missed you. It's in the way he tilts his cheek towards me when he expects a kiss, and although he won't lift his arms around me for a hug, there is a distinct stillness and deliberate pause that speaks his reciprocation. It's in the way that I know he's in a good mood when his tuneless humming drifts comfortably, if one forgave a few pubescent hitches, across the room, and on especially happy days, allows one to catch a surprisingly familiar stanza or two. It's in the way he snickers to me at particularly relevant points in our family's conversation, or when he knows Alan's in for it with my dad. His "I know I'm doing something bad" face still makes an appearance every so often, yet however maddening it is, it's endearing and so uniquely Trevor. It's in the way that, when I read to him (and he reaches over, flipping the book upside down, his favorite reading orientation), tell him hesitantly about my Berkeley adventures, he responds with his sort of intelligent silence, a sweet secret smile, a rough tap on the shoulder that beckons me to go on, please. It's in the way that he grips my index finger to laboriously trace simple replies across the kitchen table. Yet, as much as we have unearthed, as much as we patiently dig, so much of his being, his personality, his inner thoughts, remains deeply buried in inexpressible mystery. Is he aware that he is different? Would he want to change himself? What does he think of as he listens to our car murmur away from the Miracle house driveway, as he sits on the couch with the other kids (and is friendship, for him, even something to be grasped?), as he is bathed and dressed by caretakers that come and go with employment opportunities? What does he dream about? Does he believe in the God who has made him so fearfully and wonderfully? Is he ever captured, as I am, by the beauty of words? Sometimes, I wonder, when we finally meet anew in that everlasting dance, what his soul would sing in that celestial Heart language.

So, what is relationship without language?

                It's a love lived out in faith,

              understanding that there may be no answer, no response, no tangible return,

yet altogether cognizant that this love innately neither expects nor needs one.

                           A commitment to pour uninhibitedly

              in hopes of catching splashes of the overflow,

while already wholly drenched by the Source.

                                   Perhaps the reason why I'm no longer bothered

                                  by this third dimensional silence is because I hear all the more clearly

the whispered nuances of a fourth dimensional tongue.                               

The shrouded door is still firmly locked, yes, but when we are honest with ourselves, who among us does not carry rusting deadbolts and ponderous chains around closed doors of his own? As time trickles by, I begin to  feel more the chafing isolation of my own inexpressiveness, simply masked by layers and layers of possible words - other words, distracting words, escaping words. It is a strange peace to know that the keys to all of these doors dangle around the neck of our Lord - a father, a friend, a lover, the only One who can wholly complete us relationally, whose love, strength, patience, and mercy are eternally sufficient - that they rest enveloped in His regal robes, directly over His own heart

and that someday, all will be made known.

This little guy...

                      is my beloved brother, silent angel.

These are the green pastures I lie in. These are the still waters that I walk by. Yet in this earthly life, I remain a lost and found sheep. The green I see right now is still a green tarnished by the brokenness of a fallen world. A painted masterpiece exposed to corrosive air and hurried time, discolored strokes reminiscent of intended glory, peeling at its imperfect edges. Would you laugh if I told you that in times of blind weakness, I can't even muster up the mustard seed minimum? The faith to believe that restoration will come, that there is purpose and completion in suffering, when prayers go unanswered, strength wanes, and reason no longer sustains...third dimensional silence I may be able to bear, but what do I do when my God is silent?

He has promised us greener pastures.

And He promises a day in which there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain. A day in which we glory in the fullness of Christ, when the words "not enough" have no stronghold in our hearts. A day in which I find Trevor, perfect and whole, through my own new and unfettered eyes. A day in which I will know what his immortal soul is proclaiming because mine will be reveling in the same. Understood. The both of us.

And in a promise, there comes a call to wait and rejoice in hope and expectation.

It is only in facing these uncertain nights that His mercies are proven new every morning. It is because of His great faithfulness that I can know myself in my absolute frailty yet still remain inescapably caught in the riches of His grace. And it is because of His promises that I know I will see, when He brings us home, the greenest
                                                                  green

that my little sheepish heart could ever desire.

For all of eternity.

A couple stragglers...

I actually made this blogspot all the way back in September of TwoThousandandNine. Clearly, my grassy blog has not skyrocketed to instant internet fame. I had the grassy part down, just...not the actual blog part. Somehow, I just couldn't put the pen to the page...or, my self to the pixelated void. First post jitters? Procrastination prowess? Uninspired life? Okay, honestly...I just allowed myself, as I do with so many other things in life, to be driven by fear [edit: and busyness]. But that, my friend, is a subject to play with at another time. This post was written over a span of at least two months [edit: more than a year now -___-], so I hope you will forgive the rampant emo-ness of particular segments, no doubt influenced by the then current news of three too many suicides and the parasitic defeat of apathy I saw eating away at people close to me. But...I also know deeply that we are loved by the highest and most perfect love there is; thus, the hope that I profess, while bold, is altogether realistic. It is my prayer that as I write, you, my reader - and I myself, in writing - will grasp all the more firmly in our hearts the empowering implications of this truth.

Here's to living with the promise of greener pastures. Here and now.

Trevor is now 18 and finally approaching a healthier weight. More updates on him later!