Week 11 of Serialization: Where Does My Autistic Son Belong? Chapter 11: BONGABON: TAKE 1
In 2019, I published Where Does My Autistic Son Belong?. It chronicles my struggle with raising my adolescent autistic son, Sebastien, and my subsequent decision of setting a home for him in Bali. As part and parcel of A Mother’s Wish initiative (amotherswish.com.sg) to raise awareness about the need to treat autistic individuals with genuine respect and empathy, I am serializing the book on Medium, (please see the links below for all the chapters serialized to date):
CHAPTER 11
TAKE 1: BONGABON
(Dec 10th, 2015 – January 9th, 2016)
Jerome and Sebastien relaxing in the family compound
Our trip to Bongabon was a veritable lesson in figuring how to trust someone you barely know in a life-changing mission. Yes, the disparity of these two elements does make it sound like mission impossible. It was truly a reflection of the dire straits that we were in.
Aside from purchasing our aeroplane tickets and making sure that they matched Lucinda’s flight, we left all other preparations to her. Jerome and I allowed ourselves to be left in the dark about the specifics of the details, save for the handful of photos of the hotel that we would stay at and the queries that she had about Sebastien’s food preferences. Though one could say that our passive following of her lead could be considered a test of whether we could truly trust her with this recon trip, our stance was more a reflection of our sense of disempowerment about our situation with Sebastien and guarded enthusiasm about Bongabon...
To continue reading...
To purchase the book, please use this link (https://www.amotherswish.com.sg/product-page/crowdfunding-pledge-s-30). Thank you very much!
Comments