Vachon Imagined

When my son was little, and before he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, he would go into fits that lasted thirty to forty-five minutes. He would bite, kick, hit, and I would become so incredibly emotional, wanting him to stop, that I would want to jump out of a window just before pulling my hair out.

Why?

Because emotions, or life, affect other people.

They are called spirits, or energy, but this isn’t about Mercury in retrograde. Though do some research on full moons and hospitals, and, well, I’ll just leave that here.

The truth is, my son, autistic or not, is an emotional being. He is life experiencing life.

There was one time in a Ruby Tuesday bathroom when I couldn’t get him to be quiet no matter what I did. I wanted to absolutely throw myself off a ten-story building, higher if necessary, because it was so. much. life.

Small body. So. Much. Life.

And while we are far better at coping strategies than we were then, I still abandon my son when he gets emotional. He has asked me to stop, more than once.

So I do.

It’s that simple.

How do I abandon him?

He gets emotional, then I get emotional, and suddenly he is on the floor crying while I am trying to pretend it doesn’t affect me. I go brush my teeth. I find something to do. Anything that allows me to pretend I am the parent and he is the lowly child who needs to get himself together.

But invariably, I come around to seeing the same thing:

If I’m truly the parent, and I’m not present when he has a meltdown—present enough to remain there with him—then how am I any better than the people who have harmed me?

I’m simply not.

And I think when people begin to accept responsibility for how much harm they cause other people, and for the ways they abandon themselves, they begin to see this more clearly.

Pharaoh was a man whose heart had hardened.

And when we don’t forgive, it isn’t them we don’t forgive.

It’s ourselves.

Everything that has ever happened to us is happening now in ourselves. The past does not remain politely in the past. It moves through the present, asking us whether we will repeat it.

But when you live this—when you actually live in presence—there is no need for forgiveness.

Because it’s not happening anymore.

It’s not happening at all.

And the more we return to presence, the less what others do and say can affect us.

We can feel.

We can acknowledge.

We can even hurt.

But the most present among us do not react.

We don’t react when we are emotional, and we don’t react when others are emotional.

We simply let it pass.

And we simply stop.

It’s not that complicated.

You just stop.

It is a movement. It is a courage. It is a bold and ever-present presence.

And that is where the harm rests.

No one is immune from causing it, and no one is immune from carrying it.

So we return.

Again and again, we return to the presence of all life, to the presence of all beings, until we can hold that presence permanently.