A Bat Mitzvah for Jenny

Excerpted with permission from "Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories," Haworth Press.

Three is not a number usually associated with the Jewish traditions. It certainly doesn't appear in the Bible as often as seven or forty. But when my daughter Jenny was born, the number three loomed large in my mind's eye, foreseeing a trio of future life-cycle events: a naming, a Bat Mitzvah, and a wedding.

The naming went according to schedule. But other milestones, specifically those having to do with development, were markedly delayed. Jenny was four and yet unable to engage in the prattle typical of children newly able, however simply, to report their impressions of a freshly discovered world. There were other things as well, telltale neurological indicators that hinted at the undeniable fact that all was not well. Even after allowing for the fact that children do not always progress according to predetermined timelines, it was apparent to both my husband and me that Jenny was--different. In fact, we held on to that adjective for a long time after it ceased to be entirely accurate, because it was infinitely easier to accept than that other word that described our daughter, autistic.

Though still not high on the list of well-understood disorders, in the early 1980s, when Jenny was born, autism was an even more esoteric label than it is today. It commonly evoked the image of a spinning child totally out of touch with her or his surroundings. In fact, autism is a syndrome of neurological abnormalities affecting the use of language, ways of relating to others, and sensory perception. The level of impairment varies significantly among those afflicted with the disability.

When the doctors relayed Jenny's diagnosis, my husband and I were devastated. As parents, we grieved for the death of dreams we had nurtured for our daughter. But the more Jenny developed into her own person, the more we saw behaviors symptomatic of autism as simply characteristics of her own unique self.