Enjoy this illsutrated short story from the anthology
BRILLIANT
COLOURS
Kay Curran
THERE
are many ways of experiencing colour! The artist and the poet express the
colours around them in amazing ways. Some
people see their feelings in colour from the golden joy of a parent when they
hold their child for the first time to the red of frustration and tiredness as
their special child grows up.
My grandson, who is 6-years-old, going on
a hundred, was taught about the meaning of colour for him when he was only
3-years-old. His mother realised he was different, special, and a friend
suggested he could be Asperger’s when she heard one of his meltdowns over the
phone.
The meltdown comes with a blood curdling
sound, very red and frustrated. Not just a tantrum that the average child will
throw but different, signalling absolute anxiety, fear or terror of whatever
makes his world almost unliveable at the time. It can be something as simple as
a decision to walk down the steps that day.
We were fortunate enough to find a very
good psychologist who worked wonders with him. However it caused all our
families’ bank balances to turn red! You can believe that!
‘Doc’, as he called her, taught him that
if he had red thoughts he would have red feelings and he had to learn to turn
them into green thoughts and feelings. It was fascinating to see how this came
about. One day, he came for his session, and, hardly able to pronounce the
words, told Doc that he had white thoughts and feelings. ‘Mmmm, tell me about
it,’ was her amazed reply. It was not something you heard at a psychologists’
conference or found in any research books.
He explained patiently that ‘angry, cranky and scared were very red
feelings’ and he understood he had to make them green. ‘But,’ he said, ‘there
is a different feeling altogether and it is white.’ Well the psychologists of
Queensland have learnt something new and colourful.
At home with me one day he announced our
dog Dove was very sad. I dismissed it by saying, ‘Oh go and give her a hug.’
Then I heard chattering coming from behind my chair, and there was my little
man explaining gently to the dog, ‘Now Dove, your white feelings are coming
from your white thoughts and you need to make them green.’ Can you believe it?
It has been, and I am sure will continue
to be, a fascinating journey with this young man who has been on this earth a
mere six years. Doc calls him her ‘little old Einstein!’ He has now been
diagnosed with autism “officially” and like other special children we are given
to nurture, he will make his own special mark on the world. We are blessed that
he is classified as a “high functioning autistic”. He is able to talk and has a
habit of doing so constantly. This can cause the listener to have feelings tingeing
on the red! You can believe that!
When he started Prep School last year his
grandfather asked him if he liked school, and he replied ‘Of course!’ His thinking was that if you go to school you
like it – a green thought or rule he has set up?
He may be a book critic in the making. Given a Prep book to read he said it was silly
as they only changed one word in the whole book. The Year 1 book received a
similar critique. The Year 2 book was considered ‘not bad’ but, when they took
him back to advanced Year 1, he had comments coming from feelings bordering on
the red. He said, ‘This book is rather silly; do you think I am a child?’
spoken politely but definitely.
As part of his therapy he gets to go
horse riding each week and I am sure his horse Sugar, has been given the ‘white
thoughts’ lecture in his own special gentle green way.
His twin sister has now been diagnosed
with Asperger’s but, just to keep the teachers hopping, girls with Asperger’s
present differently. I pray every night
for their teachers because their big brother who is 14 months older than the
twins is also on the Asperger’s/autism spectrum.
I think the difficulties they have, and
will continue to have, probably make them even more wonderful. Their proud
grandparents spruik about them constantly. Don’t ever ask grandma and granddad
about the kids or you could end up with tired ears and red thoughts. You can
believe it!
The latest is that when his mother told
him the hug he gave her was ‘a real hug’ she was asked, ‘What are the elements
of a real hug, Mummy?’ The next day when he was giving granddad his new real
big hug I noticed he was also patting him on the back. I leaned over and quietly asked, ‘Is the
patting part of a real hug?’ In his own special way he grinned and answered,
‘Of course!’
He had said a year or so before that he
had ‘blue’ thoughts for ‘special circumstances’ and I gather the ‘real hugs’
come under that colour.
However
they are very ‘normal’ children and drive their mum and dad often to ‘red
thoughts’ each day. But at night, when
they are asleep you cannot stop smiling at them with loving golden thoughts.
Many thanks to God for lending them to us in all their brilliant colours of
red, green, white and the occasional blue.
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