During the summer Ali was eleven and Mark was seven, she and I read my favorite story, To Kill a Mockingbird, together. I became emotional as I compared Mark to Boo Radley.
Ali stopped me. "Mark is not like Boo Radley,” she said. “Mark talks. Boo doesn't."
Her comment caught me off guard. To me, they were clearly alike: Boo and Mark were both outsiders, nice but reclusive. I was always puzzled by Boo's mysteriousness, and I was also puzzled by my son's. However, Boo initiated friendship with the Finch kids by placing gifts in the tree and even saved their lives at the end of the novel. I assumed he was a talker because most people are, though the only words we hear from him are “Will you take me home?” at the end of the book.
That day my perceptions of autism changed. Seeing a sister's desire to defend her brother against comparisons with a character she knows many readers see as strange comforted me. It made me sad, however, that her image of a character I have always admired was formed by how verbal he appears to be. This stereotype also affects how many see people with autism. Mark is verbal, but his language is limited. Because of that, I don't always know what he's thinking, even though we are close, just as the Finch kids don't know Boo Radley's inner world.
By the end of the novel, Jem Finch has come to believe Boo stays inside his house because he wants to, as a refuge from the bad in the world. I hope Mark will stay inside himself or his home when he wants to as well but that he will go outside when he wants to make friends.
We must be aware that there are beautiful but fragile people in our community, and while we may never really know them we must not kill their spirit or crush their dreams. They need the warmth and safety of a place they call their own, shielded from the fast pace of the world and the stares or laughs of the ignorant. Awareness, however, must also include helping those fragile, beautiful people become conscious of others and the ways of the world – ours, theirs, everyone's.
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