CATEGORY 1
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12-15 YRS
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3RD PRIZE
Caitlin Baldock | Kellyville High School
NOT LIKE THE OTHERS
Before you run you have to walk,
before you jump you have to stand.
But not you, never you. At two years
old you finally stood up, but you
jumped at the same time. A week later
you walked a step towards me, but
you ran the rest of the way. At twoand-a-half you spoke to me, but you
said it in a sentence. The day your
father left you smiled, just for me.
“They said you would never talk,
you wouldn’t meet my eyes,
you wouldn’t smile or laugh...
But you did”
The day you were diagnosed the
doctors told me all the things you
would never do. They said you
would never talk, you wouldn’t meet
my eyes, you wouldn’t smile or laugh
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and you would never understand like
I do. But you did. Just to prove them
wrong, you did.
The day your father left I broke. You
were two years old and had been
diagnosed with severe autism. Your
father left that very afternoon. Your
older sister just sat in the corner and
cried, as any five-year-old would.
Misty didn’t understand, but you did.
Little two–year-old autistic Cassia
did. You crawled into my arms and
said your first word, in a sentence. But
what you said I didn’t want to hear.
“Mummy,” you whispered, “it’s my
fault, isn’t it?” Your deaf, extremely
overprotective sister read your lips,
jumped out of her crouched position
and swooped you into her arms.
She signed something to you and
you turned to me and smiled, gave
a small giggle and planted a kiss on
my cheek. Something you were never
supposed to do. In a few seconds a
paper aeroplane landed at your feet
and the moment was gone; you did
what you always do. You plonked
yourself on the floor and played with
it, just like any other autistic child
would do.
“...I was so low on hope and you
were sitting at the piano staring
into space, your chubby fingers
flying over the keys”
On your third birthday, you did the
one thing that kept me from breaking
down. I had been playing a song on
our CD player and I heard someone
playing the piano exactly like the song
playing on the CD player. I wondered
where Misty had learnt to play so
good, as I had never taught her the
piano. But, of course, the one sitting
at the dusty piano was you. Cassia
– the one who was never going to
talk. I was about ready to give up on
everything. There was no hope. I was
a single mother on a very low income
trying to keep up with an autistic
two-year-old and a deaf five-year-old.
And here I was so low on hope and
you were sitting at the piano staring
into space, your chubby fingers flying
over the keys. Sitting in the corner
of the room was Misty, humming to
the tune of the song, like a child who
had heard this tune over and over,
not like a child who had never heard
anything.
Your sister was just like any other
child. Your father and I taught her
sign language. When she turned eight
she came home with a letter and I
read it out to her. A special program
for deaf children was being run at the
local rock climbing centre. We sent her
there week after week until eventually
she was a better rock climber than
anyone in her whole school. Week
after week we took you to watch her
but you never saw – you were always
distracted by a paper clip or a fly. But
we never saw you occasionally snap
out of the trance you were always
in and look at your older sister and
wonder why you couldn’t do it.
You started school at five, like any
other child. But it wasn’t the same.
You went to a special school for
special-needs children. You didn’t
go to school on a yellow bus with
screaming children. You got on a
white bus with wheelchairs and
kids who couldn’t even talk. I said
goodbye as you hopped on the bus,
but you didn’t look. You mumbled
a goodbye and stared at the ceiling,
clicking your fingers like you always
did. The bus drove away and I walked
into the house. I said “goodbye” to
you for the very first time.
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The first birthday party you ever had
was when you were six. You had
five friends coming – as well as their
parents – because I couldn’t handle
five disabled children. You invited
four autistic children, all boys, and
one girl who was deaf. Kaziah was
her name. She had been your best
friend for a whole year. I didn’t know
how she did it. How she saw you
and liked what she saw. Kaziah had
the patience to teach you everything
that I could not. When you were one
term into school you slept over at her
house. After two terms she had taught
you how to write every letter in the
alphabet, as well as your own name.
I let you rock back and forth clicking
your fingers, but Kaziah never did. As
soon as you started she always asked
what was upsetting you. You never
told her, but she knew, and she fixed
it. Without Kaziah you would never
have made it as far as you did.
“After two terms she had
taught you how to write
every letter in the alphabet,
as well as your own name”
I gave birth to Ayda when you were
six-and-a-half. Misty was excited as
any child would be. You just sat there,
signing the alphabet with your hands.
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I asked you for names. Misty came out
with typical names: Jessica, Stephanie,
and Amy. I didn’t look at you until I
noticed that you had stopped signing
the alphabet. Now you were spelling
something, like you always did when
you didn’t want to speak. It was a
name; you had understood what I
had asked. I couldn’t figure out what
you were saying as you were signing
it extremely fast, like you did when
you were unsure. Misty signed it
slowly for me. A-Y-D-A. You wanted
to name the baby Ayda. It was perfect.
I asked you where you had got the
name from, and once again, you
signed it instead of speaking, but
slowly enough this time for me to
understand. “Kaziah’s mummy had
baby and name it Ayda; she die 2 day
later because she stop breath.” Your
broken-up English was perfectly clear
to me. You wanted to name the baby
after Kaziah’s dead sister.
Ayda was only one month old when
it happened. The bus came to pick
you up for school andyou hopped
on, clicking your fingers like you
always did. I said a goodbye and you
switched to sign language. Signing
the words “no” and “stop”. I took no
notice. I watched the bus go to the
end of the street and start to turn the
corner. I watched the neighbour’s car
slide out of the driveway. I watched
the car go through the bus window. I
heard you scream and I watched the
car go straight for you. I ran towards
where you lay, all crumpled and
broken in the wreck of metal. The
neighbour was stumbling out of the
car as the bus driver shouted at him
for ruining his bus. There was only
one other child on the bus that day
– Kaziah. She was lying in between
chairs, her eyes wide open staring
at you. Realising Kaziah was okay, I
looked over to what she was staring
at so intently. Once again she had
seen what I had not. The whole back
of my beautiful daughter’s body was
drenched in fresh blood.
Your funeral was colourful and bright.
We had the only song you ever sang
played over and over – ‘Africa’ by
Toto. Misty didn’t move, and for the
whole four hours she sat right next to
your coffin,signing your name over
and over. As we lowered your coffin
into the ground Kaziah signed what
all of us were thinking. “Not like the
others.”
“I loved you and still do love
you because you ARE my life.
When you were gone,
I was gone too”
When you died I broke again. This
time it was worse. I loved your father
because we made a life together.
I loved you and still do love you
because you ARE my life. When you
were gone, I was gone too. At home
the absence of clicking made the
house seem empty. Ayda never went
to sleep because you weren’t there
to hum her to sleep. And for at least
a year after you died, whenever I
looked at the piano I expected you
to be sitting on the seat, playing or
silently signing the alphabet with
your hands. Your life was short. Your
life was fun. But your life didn’t last
long ENOUGH. Misty went into
part-time motherhood as I thought
about all those people who find out
that their child is ill and disown them
without a thought. They missed out.
But so did I.
“...although Ayda had only known
you for the single month you
were in the world together
she knew your name”
I didn’t get back on my feet until
a few days after Ayda turned one.
She didn’t speak her first word like
every other child. She signed it. And
although Ayda had only known you
for the single month you were in
the world together she knew your
name. Carefully signed in my little
Einstein’s hands were the letters C-AS-S-I-A, that she had seen constantly
in Misty’s own fingers through every
waking second of her life after you.
I came back to life after that day,
knowing how much of an impression
you left on the world. Because you
weren’t like any other kid. You
weren’t like the normal kids because
you were autistic. But you weren’t
like the autistic kids, either. You
did everything the doctors said you
couldn’t. You were not like the others.
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