Waiting to Connect

These two personal essays reveal the thoughts of a mother/teacher struggling to communicate with two of her charges in order to care for them.  

In “The Other World,” the mother seeks help from Helen Keller’s experiences to understand her son’s sensory issues due to Asperger’s syndrome, such as practically being able to see the bacteria on the wall but not being able to judge traffic well enough to cross the street without fear.  

“Waiting to Connect,” an award-winning essay, explores the similar traumas shared by the son as a teenager/young adult with AS and one of the mother’s adult ESL students who was politically tortured in his native Pakistan before coming to the United States.