Excerpt From ‘Three Times the Love’

2-26-10

Editor’s Note:  Here is an excerpt from Lynn and Randy Gaston’s “Three Times the Love,” about their autistic triplets.

Nicholas wakes us up at two a.m. and gestures that he wants to get up.
“Come on, honey,” I whisper. “Lie here with mommy a little bit longer.” But no; he’s up and nothing can dissuade him. He doesn’t convey this in words. Since he stopped speaking as a toddler, he shows us what he means through sign language – strong, eloquent gestures of his arms and hands. He can’t tell us how he feels, but he can show us. When he was recently ill with a stomach blockage, he took our hands and placed them over his belly with an anguished look. This was clear enough, though we dream of hearing words.
As I start to get up, he heads into the kitchen and comes back with a box of Ritz crackers in the shape of various dinosaurs, sitting down and picking systematically through the entire box until he finds the stegosauruses – the only ones he will eat. Then he turns to Randy’s computer manual and begins paging through it, one of his favorite activities. It has left the pages dog eared and moist. He’s not really looking at the pages, but something about this activity seems to soothe him – he can do it for hours.
But not today. After a few moments, he looks at me and gestures that he wants to watch a Sesame Street video, one he loves so much that he often kisses the screen and sways to and fro when he hears his favorite song.