pondering a timely story

Luke's Language Arts homework was to read a story called Jeremiah's Song. It's about a young boy who has a lot of conversations with his grandfather before he passes away.  When I realized the grandfather was going to die, I was like, "Really? We're reading this NOW? Do we have to? The poor kid's heart is raw from loss!"

But it was good. It really was.

He understood lines like,
"I was the one who loved Grandpa Jeremiah the most and she didn't hardly even know him so I didn't see why she was crying." Seemed to sum up how he feels about a lot of the hoopla at the school ... (not saying his feelings about that are right or wrong or fair, just saying they're his)

Later came this line,
"She was crying but it wasn't a hard crying. It was a soft crying, the kind that last inside of you for a long time."  He just sighed ... like someone had put his very feelings into words.

One of the questions was:  Who do you think the narrator learned the most from? Luke answered, "I think he learned the most from Grandpa, because he loved him and he had a lot of chats with him. This makes me think of Dr. Bowe, the principal of my school, and having a lot of chats with him before he passed away."

Later, this question: Has anyone influenced your life the way Grandpa Jeremiah touched the lives of those around him? Luke had to use one of the vocabulary words to answer the question. He answered, "I used to interact with Dr. Bowe a lot of times until he died."

People with autism process emotion differently. They express emotion differently. Sometimes this makes other people uncomfortable - sometimes it makes THEM uncomfortable. But don't ever make the mistake that they don't feel. I'm of the opinion that they feel more than most...