Gardner - A Friend Like Henry

My husband, Jamie, never forgets a date. He has a head for figures, which explains why he is involved in microchip design for a living. Anything involving numbers just seems to stick. So when he reminded me that Henry came into our lives on February 18, 1994, a Friday, I knew it must be so. Our son, Dale, then five years and eight months old, was to have a puppy. Typically this is an exciting day for a child, but our son was anything but typical and completely different from any of his peers. This day was for us all the highest risk and biggest gamble we were ever to take with Dale in his short but challenging life to date.

We desperately hoped this innocent little puppy would at the very least be some sort of living companion for Dale and maybe give him some insight into successfully having a first friend. One could perhaps be forgiven for wondering why he had no friends, but the answer is simply that Dale didnt have the faintest inkling of what friendship was or a desire for it, let alone the ability to grasp the concept of how to maintain such a complex relationship. In his world, he had formed a bond with a pull-string, two-foot stuffed Mickey Mouse doll, which went everywhere Dale did. I used Mickey as a role model in any way I could to teach Dale. We also lived twenty-four seven with Dales ultimate obsession, Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends , which was Dales compromise with the real world.

We learned to use this obsession to teach Dale the most basic social rules and how to try to make friends. Jamie and I employed Thomas as a teaching aid, using the trains personality and facial expressions to help Dale understand feelings and emotions. We also used some poetic license from the stories such as Trust Thomas, who was the perfect friend and role model, Jealous James, Boring Bertie, and especially Helpful Henry, who was his favorite train. He also loved the whirring sound of Harold the helicopter, who was always happy. We didnt know it then, but some of these characters would open doors of opportunity for Dale in later life. To us, as the Fat Controller stated, Thomas was indeed a very useful engine. For eighteen months, we were all involved with using this technique to help Dale, until we reached the saturation point using Thomas and eventually ran out of steam. Unbeknownst to us, this little pup, because of Thomas, was to transform all our lives and future as a family forever.

For over two years, our days consisted of surviving tantrums of epic proportions. They were epic in terms of both duration and the ferocity of the frustration and anger that was being unleashed by Dale due to his inability to communicate with us on any level. Dale had no idea who we were, and we feared we would never be able to reach him.

Only by chance, at a childrens Christmas party where Dale reacted as though Santa himself was a monster, could I put a name to the reasons for Dales behavior. The party itself was an alien and petrifying environment, and Dale clung to me as though his very life depended on it. On witnessing my sons reaction, a nursing colleague, Jean, gave me a word that made sense of Dale to her, but it left me feeling as though she had just told me my son had cancer. She said Dale reminded her of a group of children she had worked with in the past, and they were autistic. When I researched the subject, I knew Dale was a severe case. Despite all my efforts to get him help and appropriate education, no one would listen to me for another two years, when finally, aged almost four, Dale was diagnosed with classical autism.