Wynn wants to be Batman. He's counting on me to bring him his Batman cape this afternoon when I visit him in the hospital. Unfortunately, I'm unable to locate it anywhere in the house. Last I knew, it was in the toybox, but when I search I find only the black polyester suit that came as part of the Halloween costume some autumn in the past. The front of the suit has a Batman logo that will perhaps satisfy the superhero in my son. I hold it up and imagine a tight fit as his legs have become stilts in pre-adolescence. I can anticipate his disappointment and so I plan to make a Walmart run on the way to Portland.
He also asked me to bring his plastic sword, "So I can be someone's enemy." he said. "Just for pretend, Mom." he assured me.
I'm not sure what to think about his fascination with superheroes and fighting. My husband and I moved from Chicago to Maine early in his life in order to surround him with nature. We helped him find frogs and crickets, snakes and tadpoles. I read him The Kapok Tree and The Salamandar Room. I plastered his walls with framed paintings of fish and bears, and covered his bed with stuffed penquins, meerkats and ostriches that compared to the real thing. Together we collected rocks and shells on the nearby beach and built a child-sized log cabin in the woods.
Wynn's first love was a hamster named Piper, who he almost hugged to death more than just a few times. On walks, we stopped and greeted every dog on the bike trail and identified every bird at every feeder. Very intentionally, we exposed him to the beautiful gifts of nature that taught compassion and pointed to a loving God. And I had hoped that fresh air and a house in the woods would shelter my precious young son from weapons and fists.
So what about Batman?
Hmmm. Maybe my son, who is typical in so few ways, is tapping into a very typical boyhood intuition. Maybe Wynn, like my nephews who used to chew their breakfast toast into the shape of handguns, needs to practice protecting society from evil and danger as he wrestles imaginary aliens and villians. Perhaps he is channeling pinned up energy and hormones into a mind-battle for the power over the universe.
Could it be that when he pounds his pillow and leaps across his bed in mock aggression that he is preparing himself to one day lead a soccer team to victory, a troop into battle, or even maybe rally his own spirit to prepare for the trenches of life in the real world one day?
Or, just maybe, he is arming himself for a bigger fight. One in which he no longer cares to lose. With the right weapon, the proper cape, and a determination as big as his imagination, he might just be able to send autism into oblivion forever. No more fear--WHAP! Confusion be gone--BOOM! Medications and shots can take that---CRASH! BANG! BASH!!!
All I can say is, "Holy ambition, Batman!" and I'm off to find the perfect cape.