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Articles By Michelle
Autistic Spectrum Disorder
A Very Special Assignment By Michelle Sim

(as published in Beyond Ordinary Living May/June 2008 edition) 

“Mrs. Sim?” “Yes, Kim?” I responded to my guest. “Hans and I really love you. We’re doing a lot better.” My heart was moved as Kim and her husband Hans gave me sincere, appreciative hugs, ending an evening of dinner, a movie, engaging conversation and heartfelt sharing. I met Hans and Kim just before they married about ten years ago. They are friends of my son Paul, who has a mild form of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). When I was first introduced to his friends, Paul, being the sensitive and caring person that he is, was concerned about Hans’ anger toward his father, who had treated his family poorly, and his inability to help his severely ill mother, who has since passed on. Paul wanted Hans to have an opportunity to be influenced by a more positive family environment. Hans and Kim are just two of our son’s special friends who have been coming to our home most Thursday nights since last summer. Paul, my husband Ian and I host an evening of fun, food and friendship. I prepare a simple meal that they could easily replicate at their own residences where they live with minimum support from Community Living. There are usually five guests and the three of us. As they enter the house, they all shout “Mom! We’re home!”, so excited that mother and father figures are there for them. They are all hungry, but also ready to tell us about their day, and thrilled to go down to the family room, where we watch a movie together. When the movie is over, we talk about the messages in what we saw. We choose decent movies, like “Finding Forrester”, which reflects the real world in which my young friends and son live. Where did we see good values? Did we see someone mistreated? Were there miracles? Where did we see opportunities for someone to react differently than they did, and how would that have changed the outcome? I have discovered that my mentally challenged son and his friends are some of the most caring, sensitive people that I have ever met. They see things that “regular” folks may miss, due to the busyness of our “normal” lives.Week after week, they astound me with their deep concern for humanity. They have an unusual ability to discern people’s motives — a gift I’m sure they have developed during years of being unmercifully teased, bullied and often brutalized by their peers and, regrettably, sometimes even those who should have been protecting them.Our special son and his friends have a profound sense of justice. They will quickly tell you if they perceive something that is “just not right!” I’ve been told off many, many times — and I love it!Paul handles the hospitality at our gatherings. He is a very careful driver, (interestingly, despite his scholastic difficulties, he passed his exam on the first try), and picks everyone up with my car while I make dinner. He does a great job of hosting — hanging up coats, setting the table, getting drinks for everyone, cleaning up and settling everyone into the family room. Our cat Molly adds to the welcoming environment, jumping from one lap to the next.Just recently, Paul announced that he thought he may be able to take over the whole evening — cooking dinner and facilitating the questions after the movie. We’re planning to try that, first with Ian and me supervising then eventually not. It will change the dynamics of the evening but maybe they are all ready for their group to share a greater degree of independence. We will always be there but not as involved. In some ways it is an indication of Paul’s own growing independence and we are proud of his accomplishments. It is one thing to become responsible for managing your own self, and something else altogether to attempt even a faltering step toward leadership. It is a dream come true to witness such progress after many years of what seemed unending grief and longing for “normalcy”.As a young mother I spent too many years wishing that things were different. I wished that Paul could somehow be miraculously fixed. I wished that my problems would just disappear. Of course, that would mean that Paul would have to disappear. Once he had a series of operations on his jaw and they couldn’t wake him up. In a moment of clarity, I saw what a gift Paul was to me, just the way he was, and how much I loved him. I recognized that the only real answer to our situation was unconditional love for our son and complete acceptance of the situation we found ourselves in.Paul, like his friends, is not socially mature and most likely never will be. I have learned not to be embarrassed anymore, although it has meant accepting the fact that you can never anticipate what will happen. When my husband and I recently took Paul to our favourite dim sum restaurant, with a crowd of about 200 people, mostly Asians, he strutted his 6’3” frame into the room, following us to our table. Just before he sat down, he announced loudly for all to hear, “Boy, there’s a lot of Chinese people in here!” — quite appropriate had it been a young child speaking but attracting a lot of puzzled glances when it came from a man of his stature! It is just one of the conundrums faced every day by parents and others who find themselves in the position of caregivers for a child who will never grow up, and it is a situation that affects every member of the family. Siblings almost always suffer as a special needs child absorbs an inordinately large percentage of their parents’ energy and resources. Families who are thrust into this daunting role deserve the highest degree of community support and respect. Support, because the demands on every one of their resources — physical, emotional, and financial — are staggering. Respect, because it is a lifelong commitment to dealing with a complex reality, uncharted waters and not knowing what’s next year after year. Often diagnoses are difficult to pinpoint and provide few concrete answers about which behaviours can be altered and which must be accepted. Working with both the special people who have Autism Spectrum Disorder and those who love and care for them has given me a broader perspective of the pleasure and pain involved. One doesn’t often associate pleasure with this situation but there are rare moments of sheer beauty unlike any other that make it all worthwhile. As Kim and Hans walked out the door hand in hand, I was reminded that some work can never be rewarded with money. Instead, it is paid in memories, warm hugs and gentle smiles. 
 
Christmas Story

A Christmas Story

By Rev. Michelle Sim 

 “Hail the heav’n born Prince of Peace! Hail the Son of righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings, Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth; Born to give them second birth.
Hark the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’”

 It was Christmas 1982 and I had sung the third verse of this Christmas Carol hundreds of times over the majority of my 34 years. But I had never “heard” it before. I had never “gotten” it.   But then, ten months prior to this particular Christmas, on precisely February 22, 1982 my entire life had changed forever.

I had grown up going to church. It was the cultural thing to do in the 50’s and early 60’s. But confusion set in when I was old enough to ask questions and no one in the church, or my parents, had answers that satisfied my curious nature.

When I asked mom if Mary had really been a virgin, she looked at me dumbfounded and said “Of course not. Don’t be so stupid!”

But I and everyone else in the church in which I had been confirmed, every week diligently recited the Apostles’ Creed, proclaiming the virgin birth. AND each one of us, every week, marched to the altar and partook of the sacraments of wine and bread, remembering Christ’s sacrifice until His return. I really believed, in my childish naivety, and I was crushed to find out that, just like a good girl scout, all that I had chosen to walk in allegiance to was nothing but a bunch of lies. I was thirteen.

Hypocrisy is a killer. But a heart seeking the truth will eventually find it.

After the time of my horrendous discovery, I became bitter against anyone going to church. I continued to go myself because I liked to sing in the choir. That was until the choir mistress got crankier by the week and then eventually took off with a man whom was not her husband. I started getting very judgmental against these people going to church for the wrong reasons, as though I was not one of them!

Then my sister Janine got pregnant at seventeen and some of the leaders in the church decided that her little sister (me!) would not be allowed to come to their homes anymore. I was only thirteen but even I knew that I couldn’t get anyone pregnant!

Church people were looking bleaker by the day. I didn’t want anything to do with them and so I eventually at seventeen walked away from church life.

Fast forward to 1981 in southern Ontario – there is a serious recession and we are in a real estate crisis, about to lose everything.  I have been married since 1968. I now have two sons – one a genius, one developmentally challenged. My husband, a good provider, works as many as three jobs at a time to provide a nice home for his family. He is a workaholic! We are young and he does not know how to be a father. I have sunk into a serious depression as I have no life. I am creatively dead, I am overworked, I have no help, I am raising the children primarily on my own. I am young, attractive, intelligent, loving and kind and I am dying. I am so catatonically depressed that I believe if anyone even touches me, the last bit of life remaining in me will be sucked out and I will cease to exist. I have lost my peripheral vision.

I am in trouble.

At a job I had taken on, I had met a woman named Ruth, whom I could only describe as an angel. She was peaceful, calm, loving, patient and Roman Catholic. Now I knew that her peaceful state was not due to her religious affiliation as I knew many Catholics who were as messed up as the most messed up people I knew. Ruth began to tell me about God and that Jesus, God in the flesh who came to earth to identify with us and to pay the ultimate sacrifice for us with His blood, was real and that He loved me.

I told Ruth she was nuts! Now this was how out to lunch I was as Ruth was a client of mine and we all know that the customer is always right. But as I said, Ruth was patient. She told me about miracles she had received and how God had provided supernaturally for her. I mostly scoffed at her, but deep down I must have been listening.

I had left God but He was still hunting me down.

When our financial troubles began to get so serious we did not know what to do, I shared our situation with Ruth and she told me that I needed to pray for help. I laughed and said I didn’t know how to pray. My Common Book of Prayer was long gone and if a prayer was not written down, I didn’t know what to say. She sincerely responded to my doubt with “Just talk to God Michelle, as thou He was right here.” Instead, I asked Ruth if she could pray for me. “Of course I will.” She lovingly replied.

I carried on for a few more weeks, not at all going toward God and sinking deeper into a despair I had never nor since experienced. I’d call Ruth every once in a while and say “Ruth you’re not praying hard enough. Nothing’s happening.”

One day, Ruth simply said, “Michelle, you pray.”

Shortly after, on February 22, 1982 I was so depressed I could not go to work. I fell asleep at my kitchen table, my head being held up by the rim of my coffee cup. I woke up, went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. I looked twenty years older than my thirty-three years and I had a large  ring imprinted into my forehead from the coffee cup. What a decrepit mess. Then I heard inside of me Ruth’s voice, “Michelle, you pray. Just talk to God, as though He was right here.”

The next half hour was a supernatural experience for me. I was literally drawn upstairs to my bedroom where I fell on my knees onto the floor. I spilled my guts before a God I was still not sure even existed. I cried out, “IF YOU EXIST, help me! I don’t want to go on like this. I WANT to be a good wife.. a good mother. HELP ME!!” I sobbed for several minutes and when I stopped, a peace came over me that is still indescribable. The Bible calls it “the peace of God that passes all understanding.” All I knew was that everything was going to be all right. I remained in a God-cocoon for weeks, surrounded by a Love that I had never experienced before. God proved to me, one individual young  woman, that He did indeed exist.

That night, a pastor and his wife from British Columbia were brought to our home by a real estate agent and they rented our home. They were starting up a new work in Oakville and were looking for a place to rent while their home in Mapleridge sold. The rent was much higher than they had wanted to pay but they felt that our home was where they were to be. They had no idea that that very morning I, a lost soul, had fallen on my knees in desperation and asked God to send help.

The deal was written up, accepted by us, and they asked if they could visit us the next evening before  returning to B.C. to make their move east. We agreed. My husband did not understand why my depression had lifted. He reasoned that it was most likely that our place had rented and that we could move into our new home. He knew nothing of my spiritual experience – that I had been zapped by God Himself! We had never had a spiritual component in our marriage.

That night, February 23, 1982 I experienced what the Christmas Carol sings about “Born to give us second birth!”. I had never ever heard about being “born again”, but the pastor prayed for me and I truly became a new person. I was instantly delivered from a serious depression. I have never suffered with depression since – free for almost twenty four years now.

I have received healings and strength when I had not an ounce of natural energy left. I have created things that I don’t know how to create. In one day I wrote a whole play that was performed at The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts and that raised $25,000 for the Salvation Army. I have won a Juno Award. I have traveled to many places and experienced many amazing things. I fiercely faced a crazed cult leader and rescued my nephew’s wife from his hypnotic prison. I became a full time pastor at the church started by our renters! “Light and life to all He brings. Ris’n with healing in His wings.”

Christmas 1982 shed light on a lot of things. I understood the Christ in Christmas. I KNOW the Christ in Christmas. I am grateful for His great love never fails me.

A heart seeking the truth will eventually find it. Have a very merry Christmas!