The Best of All the Lost Arts

I'm 31. I've been married for not quite eight years and have three kids. My daughter, the oldest, started kindergarten today. My middle child has autism. He doesn't talk. My youngest is still so little the only personality traits he shows are curiosity and hunger. 

When I met my wife we were in college, neither of us sure what we wanted to do with our lives, only that we wanted to be in each others'.  And that was enough. 

I bounced from shitty retail job to shitty retail job, and ended up with an okay city job. I have Fridays off, and a pension. She stays at home, being a mom. 

It seems like there is never enough money. We're not destitute, and it would be unfair to say we live in poverty, but it's all I can do to pay the bills. If I'm lucky I pick up side work painting houses. We have to start Christmas shopping sometime in September to spread the cost. 

At night, I put my autistic son to bed.  I put on his pajamas, hold him down to brush his teeth, (he's unreasonably strong for a four-year-old) and carry him into his bedroom. I hold him and put his hand on my chest and say "Daddy." I put his hand on his chest and say "Eli." I repeat this until he takes his hand from mine and pats my beard. Sometimes he smiles. Sometimes he makes his "not-happy" sound, a mix between a coyote yip and a native war cry. Sometimes I can't take it, any of it, and I hold him and weep quietly in the dark where my wife can't see. 

My son can't talk, and I love him. 

My life isn't easy, but it's mine. 

I'll take it.