![](https://images.ecency.com/DQmYWXnCKiXeahKcAAkCA6F3gCdpPEADBTp4FFjKcbicfUX/img_6269.jpg)


"Mommy!"  Jethro’s eyes were like saucers. "It’s a worm!"

I sauntered down on my haunches to take a better look. Jethro didn’t talk much; he didn’t talk at all, really. I took in the fat caterpillar that had captured his imagination. It was yellow-green and hairy. I remember that I laughed and held him back—he wanted to touch it.

"Let it be. Leave it alone; it’s in its own world. Don’t interfere."

He turned a sweet, cherub-ruddy face at me, questioningly.

"It’s a caterpillar," I offered unnecessarily.

My relationship with him was tenuous at best and very quiet at worst.

But I loved/love him, absolutely.

Of course, I wanted—no, I needed—him to love me back. I wanted to be his mother.



Jethro’s real mother died of cancer when he was three years old. I wanted to be his everything, but, obviously, that was ridiculously unfair of me. It was ridiculous!



Jethro filled my world. He forced me to see things that I usually missed and that most people in this fast-paced world miss all the time.



It’s so odd that it took a worm to connect us.

It was so odd.



"Mommy!" 



The word cuts through me like a knife; I’m butter...



It was the only time he ever said it.



He wasn’t my child. He isn’t my child.



He has a relatively rare condition that prevents him from interacting with other people in a normal way.



Autism is an impossible sentence for a child. It’s impossible for everyone.



He is no longer in my world. I have no power to change that.



I have no power.



I miss him every day. 

His father sends me a few progress reports every now and then. Then, more often than now.



...but I will always remember the day he said the word:



"Mommy"


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[Image Source ](https://pixabay.com/photos/mother-boy-son-whisper-love-3997967/)