Senior Night #1

I don’t choke up emotionally very often. Mostly it is because of the human car wrecks I see wandering before me in hearing after hearing. I hear so many bullshit stories of redemptionthat it has burned me out on acceptance of the better nature of human kind.

On Saturday night I came pretty damn close to crying. It was senior night for my son Primus’s hockey team. He is not a major contributor on the ice this year because on a high school varsity team it is about winning not letting everyone get their fair share of ice time. That is how it works in the real world. I truly get that. However I have been told repeatedly he works hard and he never complains.


The ritual of senior night is that the child provides a biography to the manager. On the night of the honors the manager calls out the player’s name and then the skater comes out to center ice. After the biography is read the player skates over to the carpet where Mom and Dad are standing, gives a hug, a handshake and hands a flower (a yellow rose) to Mom.


On this night Primus seemed to want to do these things. He wanted to shake hands. He wanted to hug. Ah how the years have moderated some of the more notable ASD traits when social norms dictate it. He made my proud that he was playing by the neurotypical rules that night.


In order to make sure Primus had created a biography I found time to pull the manager aside. I asked her did he actually give you anything on this? She said “Oh yes, he gave me words and I turned them into sentences.” Is there an ASD parent out there who doesn’t get this? I just started laughing.


When Primus skated onto the ice he got applause, a good deal of applause. It wasn’t the loudest but it was definitely not the lightest either. It was a solid round and it was wonderful. Apparently he is liked by his team mates. One parent told me that he really was somebody that was considered quite highly by his fellows on the squad.


There was a sign at the end of the rink that had been made for him by some of the girls who follow the team. It said, “We “heart” you Primus, #4.” I don’t know who organized the signs but whoever did the fact that there was one for every senior player including Primus was just wonderful.


It was the applause though that I keep coming back to. The applause and one parent’s between periods comment. That parent stopped us to say he thought sport taught kids something important and that Primus was a prime example. We all agree that Primus is not going to be playing college hockey. At best Primus is maybe going to be playing in the beer leagues, maybe. But what the parent said was this, “Primus wanted to be on the high school team and he preserved. Year after year he never gave up. Perseverance is something that sports is good at teaching”.


Yup I welled up a couple of times that night.