Finally…. a guest post! I’ve asked my family a time or two to write a post on LTL to give my blog an encompassing family vibe and to offer different viewpoints. Please take a minute to read the paragraph below. It is beautifully stated and quite thought provoking. “How Are You” was written by the real writer in the family and the best dad I know…. Don Lund #twinning#AutismFamily#howAREYOU

It was late Friday night after a miserable week of dealing with lawyers and the twenty-four hour news cycle that relentlessly labels and dehumanizes us and we all go along for the ride. The omnipresent news cycle feeds into this divisive moment where we shout at each other and latch onto simplistic narratives that ignore the vast complexity of human interaction. As therapy, I poured a Bombay Sapphire over ice, put on head phones and rifled through pages of several different books looking for something to reenergize some faith in humanity. Then, out of nowhere, something my seventeen year old son has been repeating for the last few weeks hit me; “How Are You?”. Not “How Am I?”, but “How Are You?”. The ultimate humanizing question. My son has autism and is essentially non-verbal. He also is the most pure, compassionate, and interesting person I know. If anyone in the room is upset or crying, he immediately comes over and holds their face and wipes the tears away. That is not an exaggeration, it is reality. If anyone should be bitter it is my son. But instead he is a constant ray of light. Unlike the books I was rifling through, he communicates with gestures and single words. He cannot spontaneously speak in connected phrases. But he does repeat certain phrases. And given his character, it struck me as perfect that he has been constantly repeating “How Are You?”. And because he speaks the phrase not in a normal cadence but in a sing song voice with an emphasis on the last two words – “how ARE YOU” – it stays in your head after he says it. What a lesson in those words and the attitude behind those words. Don’t whine about the world and then wallow in the feeling of helplessness to do anything about it. Don’t be absorbed in yourself and your outrage that the world will not conform to your personal narrative. Get the hell out of yourself and ask about the people in your life: “How Are You?”. And then actually follow up. That is what my son does.