I promised Gavin I would get this out there tonight and it’s currently 1:34 am EST and as my eyes are rolling into the back of my head, I’m determined not to let him down. This will however, be brief. ☺
Gavin absolutely kills me sometimes. Yes, he has his challenges and yes, I can become frustrated with certain behaviors. That pretty much makes me human and try not to beat myself up too much for that.
At 20 years old, I’ve been raising Gavin as my own for 19 years now. He never ceases to amaze me.
Gavin is hands down one of the kindest, most thoughtful, most gentle human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He just is. At the same time, he can say and do some pretty weird and random things. I mean that affectionately.
I was working on an outline for this week’s interview and Gavin is in his room, working on a picture. I’ve shared that below, so check it out.
Anyway, he starts talking to me from across the hall and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I ended up going to see because I was curious at that point. He’s sitting on his floor, working on the picture and he looks up at me and says the most random thing. He said, Dad, when I grow up, I think I’m going to prove the existence of parallel dimensions.
I have no idea where that came from but he’s decided that would be a good use of his time and more power to him.
He spent time explaining it to me and his knowledge was surprisingly consistent with what little I know about this theory. What little I know came from shows like Star Gate.
I’m not sure what sparked his interest but I like that he’s thinking about this and that he’s planning for the future. He even talked about moving out on his own.
Some of these things are more realistic than others but I love the way he’s determined to make the best of his life and he wants to help others. I walked away with a smile after listening to him for a few minutes.
Moments like these help me maintain perspective. Sometimes I get so caught up in everything that I fail to see them for what they are. These moments are little glimmers of hope and they help me to keep going.
Gavin struggles quite a bit but this kid never, ever gives up. I have so much respect for who he is as a person and I’m excited to see where life takes him.
Gavin is hands down a fantastic artist. My son also is heavily into both his art and his animation that he creates on the computer. There are many things about your Gavin that are like my 37 year old son. Like you, there have also been so many times I’ve walked away from my son, after he expressed some higher bit of knowledge and aspirations to me, with that smile we get that for that moment wipes out all the frustration we sometimes feel, which is simply just human. I applaud Gavin for his talent and perhaps his ability to see and understand some aspect that we cannot. One has to remember that the smartest man who may have ever lived, Nikola Tesla(who invented a wifi remote control in the late 1890’s as well as numerous other inventions, including Alternating current) was on the autism spectrum and was on his way to invent free energy and other inventions that would have put humankind years ahead in scientific development than where we are now and would have ended the use of fossil fuels. Like the fictional character of Sean Murphy on the TV series “The Good Doctor” he was able to see and manipulate 3D images of his inventions manifest in the air in front of him. Sometimes people with autism may operate on a plane of understanding that we cannot.
This interaction reminded me so much of me and my son, though he is quite a bit younger (12) and his latest was declaring he’s on his journey to become the worlds greatest Pokemon trainer.