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"Last night was both sad and wonderful. David, Anna and I decided to take a bike ride around the neighborhood yesterday in the early evening, and as we were circling the last part of the block, we saw some of our neighbors out on their front lawn. They have two adorable little boys, and their Dad was sitting on the lawn as they ran circles around him, while Mom looked on fondly from the porch. We stopped and chatted a bit, and then headed back toward our house since it was getting dark. Two doors from home, David suddenly stopped his bike and said: &amp;quot;I want to go to Daddy&amp;#039;s house.&amp;quot; Well, that made me stop, too. David is finally OK with leaving when Daddy comes, but he still tells me he doesn&amp;#039;t want to go as soon as Peter walks in the door. He has never asked to go to Daddy before. I said &amp;quot;Sweetie, tomorrow is Daddy&amp;#039;s night. You and Anna go tomorrow.&amp;quot; He was adamant. He asked me to drive the van over to Daddy&amp;#039;s and take them both. Anna told him that she wanted to go tomorrow, not tonight, and then he just\u2026.lost it. He put his face in his hands, crying buckets of tears and big, heaving sobs. I got him off his bike, carried him inside and held him. I told him I&amp;#039;d take him to Daddy&amp;#039;s but he didn&amp;#039;t want to go without Anna and he got more upset. I finally calmed him a bit and said &amp;quot;Honey, you miss your Daddy?&amp;quot; I wasn&amp;#039;t really expecting more than a nod. Children with autism don&amp;#039;t communicate emotion well (on a verbal level) because it&amp;#039;s hard for them to recognize the emotion to begin with, much less put it into words. But David did. Oh, David did. &amp;quot;I missed. I missed Daddy.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I know, honey. I know you do.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I lost.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You lost?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I lost Daddy.&amp;quot; He put his head in his hands again, crying hard, his shoulders shaking, and I wrapped my arms around him and cried, too. Then he saw me crying and started apologizing, getting more upset because he saw me upset. And as heartwrenching and sad as it was, I realized: my autistic child is experiencing deep emotion and communicating it verbally with complete accuracy. If I hadn&amp;#039;t been feeling like someone carved a hole in my chest, I would have danced for the joy of it.I think he saw our neighbors, a perfect-looking intact family unit, and it hit him on some emotional level. We finally called Peter, and I briefed him on what happened before handing the phone to David, who by then was over the worst of it and singing alone with a Disney DVD. They talked for a few minutes, Peter telling him over and over that he loved him and that they&amp;#039;d have all weekend to play together. David finished the call his usual happy self and Anna and I had a long talk about what had happened afterward. Later, when I put David in bed, he said again &amp;quot;I missed. I lost.&amp;quot; I smoothed his hair and laid down next to him, holding him tight, and I said &amp;quot;David, it&amp;#039;s OK to miss Daddy. I miss him, too, sometimes.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You do?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yes. It&amp;#039;s OK to be sad sometimes. Everybody is sad sometimes.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s OK?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yes. I love you. And Daddy loves you. And Anna loves you.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yes.&amp;quot; He rolled over, giving me a loud, smacking kiss that made us both giggle. We watched a bit of a movie, and Anna came and laid with us as he drifted off to sleep. How is it possible to be this happy about being this sad? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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