We went back and forth on it for months. I’d try to down play it, hide that it annoyed the heck out of me too, so that the husband wouldn’t fixate on it. But the fact was that this habit of Lil D’s just continued unabated, no matter what we tried.
In the grand scheme of autism things, it’s nothing big – he is constantly opening and slamming drawers, taking something out of one and dropping it in another. And anything he finds on any surface area of the house goes into some drawer. We have forks and spoons, cooking utensils, pens, and whatnot scattered in every drawer in our house. That, plus crumbled cookies, glasses, bottles of liquid soap, hand towels, remote controls, hot wheels cars, pencils, plastic figures, shampoo bottles, Lego pieces, soggy towels and anything else you can think of.
And it’s not just the utensils and random stuff that is never stored where it is supposed to be. The liquid soap bottles leak in the drawers along with the shampoo bottles. Cookie crumbs mix in with that and it gets all gloopy. Certain drawers are favorites of Lil D’s, and the wood has been stained and all-but ruined from everything he’s stuffed inside.
He’s favoring a drawer in our main-floor bathroom of late, and specifically taking any glass or chai mug he finds around the house and depositing it there. The other day, when I was cleaning up, I found four glasses in it. Four.
And as much as I try to stay ahead and put any errant cup or glass in the sink, I can’t keep up.
Perhaps because I work from a home office and am around the kids whenever they are home, I have grown more immune to the mess and noise of drawers slamming. In our old house, he had actually broken several drawers from the constant jerking and slamming. We’ve tried all manners of locks. Nothing works. We’ve tried various therapy tactics to teach him replacement behavior. No dice.
I’ve been ok with it — supremely exasperated at times, but more or less – whatever. It is what it is. My husband, however, has had enough.
He called in a carpenter to install locks on all our drawers. I protested. This is Lil D’s house, I said. Already there are so many locks everywhere. Why must we lock the drawers?
My husband said to me – I’m not punishing him. I know he can’t help it. But he can’t keep doing this. We’ll leave one drawer unlocked for him. He can make a mess in that one. And maybe when he cannot open any other drawers, he’ll lose the habit.
Or replace it with something else, like he usually does, I said.
Well, we’ll deal with that when it happens, he replied.
Maybe he is right, and maybe this is the best way to handle the situation as we continue to help Lil D manage and live with his autism. We chose this house because there were doors we could lock. There were no high ceilings where his loud noises could echo and be amplified. There is space. There is a large, fenced-in safe backyard for him to play in. Maybe the drawers need locks, too. God knows I can’t have him grabbing a disposable shaving razor out of our bathroom drawer to use as a bead spinner. (He did that once and cut himself. And no, he didn’t come to me to show me. I just found him minutes later spinning away, fingers bloody.)
Two weeks back, the younger kids and I visited my eldest brother and his family in Texas. They have moved into a new home, and it was beautiful – sleek, modern, clean lines, high ceilings and so neat and uncluttered.
But I mostly marveled at the drawers. Spoons in their place, pencils and pens in their place, no drawers with glasses or warped, wet, stained wood mushed with the dredges of chai and crumbs.
Yeah, I envied those clean, unlocked drawers. I’ll admit it.
Then, a few days after returning home, I attended my bi-weekly halaqa (religious study group) and listened to my friend present hadith #26 from Forty Hadith of Al-Nawawi. The hadith spoke of giving thanks for every bone and joint in our body, urging us to realize how precious a gift our bodies are from Allah (swt). The hadith went on to urge us to do acts of charity every day – and that charity was not just giving money. It was helping others. Smiling at someone or saying a kind word to someone. Praying. Removing harm from someone. Keeping our relationships healthy.
And here the part that really struck me:
“A person’s response to giving thanks for the blessings he received is to be treated like a person performing a charitable act. In other words, the person will be rewarded for the charity that he performs as an act of thankfulness for bounties he has received. …
“Many humans receive numerous bounties from Allah, yet they do not recognize that these bounties come from Allah. They, obviously, then do not give thanks and gratitude to Allah for these bounties. … There are other individuals who have been further blessed and guided by Allah. These are the ones who recognize that those bounties have come from Allah. In return, they give thanks to Allah. … If Allah blesses a person and guides him to thanking Allah for a bounty he has received, that act of thankfulness is better than that worldly bounty and more beloved to Allah.”
Meaning, if we can recognize the blessings in our lives and muster gratitude and give thanks to Him, well that one of the greatest acts of charity we can bestow for the sake of Allah.
I came back from that halaqa and looked at my messy drawers. And I was reminded of a post I had written back in August of 2012 titled “Never Let You Go,” when after the most horrible ten months of an autism upsurge, when Lil D was drowning in horrible self-injurious behavior, aggression and anxiety, staying in his room most of the time, hiding under the covers and literally beating himself up, he began to emerge back into the world:
“During the months of last spring and early summer when he refused to leave his room, refused to get out from under the heavy covers of his bed, the drawers in our house remained relatively tidy and held the proper stuff in them. Bathrooms were cup-free, counters were soap-free. Beads were not found in all corners of the house. Underwear stayed on him or in its proper drawers. (He was so distraught and lost in himself that I would have to physically prompt him to go to the bathroom on a set schedule. Many accidents were had.)
And so now … I see signs of the Lil D I know. That Lil D, whose familiar quirks and habits used to be a daily annoyance, but were so missed when they disappeared behind the shadow of this autism upsurge.
That Lil D, whom I refuse to let slip from my grasp.”
Oh Allah, I thank you for the messy drawers. For bringing Lil D through that awful time to where he is now, how he is now. For giving us the continued strength to push forward and strive for better. For not allowing me to give up when I teetered on the edge of the cliff.
For reminding me that the ability to really see what is right in front of me and be thankful for it — even though the struggles remain and the roller coaster spikes up and then plunges way, way down — is charity unto You and unto myself.
