A LETTER TO MY PATERNAL GRANDFATHER.

Dear Grandfather,

I know your paternal grandfather died when your Dad was a boy and your paternal grandmother remarried. And I know that your maternal grandmother died before you were born, in fact, five days before your brother, Fred, turned ten. But here is something that you do not know. My maternal grandmother died when I was six, as you know, and the death of a grandparent, to whom you had been close, can draw you close to another grandparent, just like the death of a parent at a young age, can bring one closer to the surviving parent.

1982 was a tough year for me. It was the year where I had a bullying teacher, my maternal grandfather had his right leg amputated due to gangrene, and levels of anxiety took over me. You may not remember the two weekends where we were intended to come and stay with you, but I remember this. My mother told me that I could have a friend come over to play one weekend. I said, “But you said we’re going to Nana and Grandad’s.” “We’re not, now.” “Why?” “Because your Aunty wants to go out there.” What you could never know is, I needed your place for regulation. I didn’t want to go out there, every weekend, but if I’d had the choice of yours or having the friend over, which do you think I would have chosen? That’s right, yours. Why? Well, this friend wasn’t really a friend. He got me into bad ways. But I needed someone to survive. I had another friend, but he couldn’t visit because his parents managed a squash court and didn’t have time for him, and his life existed in his own imagination.

I was always scared that something would happen to you, when I was a kid, or something would happen to me. The fear of losing one set of grandparents does that to you.

You often used to say come out with your family, but when you’re the only autistic out of a family of four, you get driven mad by a brother who’s always on the go when you need silence to regulate yourself. There were plenty of times when I wish I could have got on the train at nearby and had you or my aunty meet me at the station and let me stay for the weekend. Not every weekend, just some. And to see my kindred spirit cousins.

Had I known I was autistic back then, I would have loved to have asked if an autistic friend could come and stay, too. Nana wouldn’t have been too tired, as what she would have been able to say was, “Two teenagers came to stay, my grandson and his friend. They watched a bit of TV and read books, and they went out and watched a few birds and talked to the horse. They didn’t play the stereo full bore.”

These are things you will never know, Grandfather.

Love, Your Grandson,

Peter.