I'm Proud of You

Our Reunion

When Asaf was four years old, he was diagnosed with autism and mental retardation. I hate those words. I hated them then, and I am deeply grateful they have been replaced. But at the time, that was the diagnosis I was given, and I absorbed it fully.

I was told he would never advance beyond the cognitive functioning of a four year old. And I believed it.

I didn't question it. I didn't challenge it. I didn't imagine anything else was possible. I adjusted my expectations, my language, my hopes. I spoke to him in short sentences. I made decisions for him. I explained less. I expected less.

I loved him fiercely. And I treated him according to the story I had been told. He had no way of showing me otherwise.

What I didn't understand then was that Asaf was not limited by his intelligence. He was imprisoned by his body. Autism, apraxia, and dyspraxia ruled his life, severing the connection between his mind and his ability to respond. He understood everything. He just had no reliable way to show it.

For twenty three years, my son lived locked inside himself. Smart. Aware. Observant. And unheard.

And the most painful truth of all is this: I never presumed his competence, because I didn't know that was an option.

I didn't fail him out of neglect. I failed him out of trust in a system that mistook silence for absence, motor difficulty for cognitive limitation, and compliance for understanding.

When Asaf began typing, it wasn't only his voice that emerged. It was the collapse of everything I thought I knew about him. And about myself.

There is no grief like realizing that the person you love most has been there all along, waiting for you to learn how to listen.

When Asaf found his voice, something unexpected happened.

I found mine.

The grief was real. The guilt was real. Twenty three years of not knowing, of believing a story that wasn't true, that lands heavily. But I made a choice not to carry it. I released it. And in releasing it, I found I could turn the pain into something generative. Into lectures. Into advocacy. Into a mission of teaching other parents what nobody taught me, that competence exists even when you cannot see it.

His emergence gave me permission to emerge too.

For the first time, I began to step into who I actually was. Not just Asaf's mother. Not just someone who had gotten it wrong for so long. But a woman with a voice, a story, and something real to say.

A few weeks ago, I boarded a plane to San Francisco.

It started as an idea. But I was open-minded enough to say yes, and in saying yes, I created a reality. And once that reality existed, I decided to create something more. I'm an advocate. I have a story worth telling. I would arrange talks while I was there.

I didn't succeed at everything I hoped for. In the end, I arranged one talk. Just one

But that one talk changed something. Because it meant I can say, for the first time, that I am an international speaker. That this work, the advocacy, the lectures, the mission of presuming competence, has crossed borders. That my voice, like Asaf's, is traveling further than I once imagined possible.

I am stepping into myself. Into my calling.

While I was away, Asaf was home.

Before I left, he typed something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

It's possible I'll miss you. I'm proud of you.

A man who was once told he would never develop beyond the age of four told his mother he was proud of her. He anticipated his own grief and held space for my joy at the same time. That is not a four year old's mind. That has never been a four year old's mind.

As the days passed, he shared more. It was hard without me. He missed me. And what he missed most was “Our conversations. The strength of typing” .

I should be honest about what that conversation looks like. It isn't always fluid. Sometimes I can't understand what he's typing. Sometimes my frustration grows and I know he feels it. His apraxia means his body doesn't always do what his brain is demanding. I know that. And still, sometimes I struggle.

But while I was on the other side of the world, Asaf showed me something I needed to see.

What I experience as frustration and limitation, he experiences as connection. As communication. As us.

That reframed everything.

Thank you, Asaf.

By the end he was done waiting. He wanted me home. "It is the longest trip ever", he wrote and continued "Mum enjoy and grow." And then, with the full humanity of someone who has been locked inside himself for decades and is now beautifully, freely himself, he wrote that he was jealous and he wants to go abroad too with his friends.

I used to grieve what I didn't know. I used to carry the weight of twenty three years of not understanding who my son was.

I still feel that. I don't think it ever fully leaves.

But it lives alongside something else now. Something that feels like wonder.

Because the same son I once spoke to in short sentences, the one I protected from complexity because I believed he couldn't hold it, is proud of me. Misses our conversations. Dreams of traveling the world.

He was there all along. And slowly, haltingly, so was I.

And when I came home, he greeted me with the widest smile I had ever seen. The smile of someone waiting for his mother. Of someone who was glad she was back.

Baker Beach San Francisco