From 1998 to 2003, Glacier National Park saw tremendous wildfires. As a photographer, I chronicled not only the flames and destruction, but the rebirth as well. Tagging along was my autistic son, a kid we called “Boy Wonder” not because he had superpowers, but because we always wondered what he was thinking. As the years went on, we went from trying times to a friendship beyond words. The following is an essay from the book “Boy Wonder and the Big Burns” that chronicles the journey through a series of photos and essays. Book is hardcover, 96 pages, and is $8.95 postpaid.
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Boy Wonder
When they tell you your son is autistic, your first reaction is to get into your car, tightly fasten your seatbelt, and drive off the nearest bridge.
Instead I went under said bridge and cried for about an hour.
Autism is a nasty affliction. A bright, loving child slowly, but surely, crawls into its own little world before your eyes. Boy Wonder, at age 2, wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t potty train. Wouldn’t look at you.
He was good at screaming and he could fly down the stairs on his belly.
But he walked like a drunk. And he wanted little to do with anyone else. Thus the name - Boy Wonder.
You always wondered what he was thinking.
What causes autism? I don’t know.
All I know is this: At around 18 months my son became very sick with the croup. Unable to breathe, his oxygen levels plummeted and he was hospitalized. Before then, he seemed to be a bright, healthy baby. When he returned he was different. His development reversed.
He used to be able to say, “Have a good day, Daddy.”
Now he said nothing.
We chalked it up to the terrible twos. So did doctors.
But things never got better. They got worse. We had him tested and the prognosis was autism.
He might get better. He might not. Intensive therapies seemed to be the most productive. So we started on our own, borrowing from a host of different treatments.
My wife, Sherry, is an educator by trade, so she started him out on intensive one-on-one speech, occupational, and physical therapy programs.
We also changed his diet. Many autistic children, it turns out, are allergic to wheat and dairy products. We took them away.
Progress was achingly slow. For my part, I decided a rather simple program. I would take him to Glacier and we would hike. I was working on this book, and he’d have to come along, like it or not.
Fortunately, Glacier was one of the few places he didn’t complain about. He loved the water. And at the time, he especially liked rocks.
Day after day, hour after hour, we hiked and threw rocks into rivers and lakes and streams.
It turned into something constructive.
Instead of just allowing him to throw rocks on his own (which he was happy to do, completely ignoring me) I made him give me the rocks and then I would throw them. Or vice versa.
“To me,” I’d say. He’d hand me a rock. I’d throw it.
“To you,” I’d say. I’d hand him a rock. He would throw it.
Then I got to picking up big rocks and throwing them in the lake.
That would make him laugh and for an instant we would make eye contact and he would smile.
This was progress.
The hikes were painfully slow. I am a hiker that thinks nothing of going 15 to 18 miles in a day. Suddenly, I was hiking with a child who, when we first started out, could do maybe a half-mile — a mile on a good day.
He’d walk a short ways and then sit down and sift dirt through his fingers. I’d pick him up and prod him on. He’d go a few more feet and sit down and sift dirt through his fingers again.
The stimulatory behavior is common in autistic children. Getting beyond it is a major hurdle. He went from sifting dirt to insisting on dragging a stick along. The sticks got bigger and bigger until they were the size of small trees.
Then he abandoned dragging the sticks for an orange. He carried an orange around for months. Every time we went to the grocery store, we picked up a fresh one,
A friend once made the mistake of peeling it. Boy Wonder had a meltdown. He outgrew the orange, it took forever, a whole summer of hikes.
He went through obsessive phases like this that lasted months. One would stop. Another would start.
By the end of the summer of his third year he was hiking seven miles a week, a mile at a time.
That was 2001. The Moose Fire was scorching Glacier.
At the same time I had my own growing fascination of the after-effects of all these fires. Fires are life-changing events. And so is autism.
Fortunately, many of the trails and places that led into burned areas suited the affliction. They were flat, easy to get to, and extremely interesting. Perfect for an autistic boy. Perfect for his photographer father.
Therapy became work. Work became therapy. We had our own obsessions. We tolerated each other’s quirks. We became best of friends.
By the summer of 2005, knocking off a four or five mile hike was the norm, rather than the exception.
He still didn’t talk very well, but the child three years ago that would barely look at me know communicated almost entirely through eye contact. He had gone from a kid who could barely walk to a monkey - climbing trees, skipping down rocky slopes with an fleetness his less than nimble father could only watch and admire.
If it wasn’t for him, I likely would have never hiked the places I did or seen the things I saw.
The owls. The flowers. The moose. The bears. The mushrooms. The insects. The frogs. The roads. The fish. The deer.
The list goes on and on.
The landscape accommodated us. Welcomed us. Taught us lessons. Gave us joy. Challenged us and rewarded us.
“Wow man,” you think to yourself. “There is a God.”
© Chris Peterson. All Rights Reserved.