I wish this story was about an uneventful afternoon a few years ago when my then-teenaged son and I were home alone while my husband was out of town for the weekend. I wish I could tell you my son was watching one of his Pixar movies in the living room and I came down the carpeted stairs with absolutely nothing in my arms, holding the railing carefully, and not losing my footing in the slightest.

If I could, I would tell you I walked easily over to where my mostly non-verbal autistic son sat in his favorite cushy green chair with his feet up on the ottoman, and I did not cry when he told me, “Fix your hair,” in reaction to seeing that my long hair had fallen in front of my shoulders.

It would be nice if I could say I didn’t sob and send him to his room, but only shrugged and brushed my hair back, with nary a hurt feeling, telling myself that we taught him this three-word phrase to curb his habit of touching my hair (or random stranger’s ponytails) when he felt the impulse to fix it to his liking. Using these words reminded him to keep his hands to himself, and although I still didn’t know how to help him get past this obsession he’d developed over how other peoples’ hair looked, I can’t say I was thinking about that at all after coming down those stairs.

I can‘t tell it to you this way because that would be a boring story.

And, that’s not what happened.

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