12/16/2025
My nonverbal son drew this at home, he asked me to show all of you. I'm sitting here on the kitchen floor at 11pm staring at this cardboard Grinch propped against the wall, and I haven't moved in twenty minutes. Lucas is eight years old and he's never spoken a single word to me. Not mama, not yes, not even a sound when he's hurt. The neurologist said maybe someday, maybe never. You learn to live in that maybe, but it carves out pieces of you that never grow back.
He painted this tonight after I came home late from my shift at the diner, exhausted and barely holding it together. I didn't even notice him watching me slam cabinets and wipe angry tears while reheating leftover pasta. When I finally sat down, he pushed this cardboard into my lap. That green scowling face peeking around the corner. The Grinch. That's what I've become to my own kid. I saw it in his eyes when he pointed at the painting, then at me. He can't tell me with words that I'm angry all the time now, that I've forgotten how to smile at him, so he painted it.
I'm opening a shop for him on Tedooo app tomorrow. His own space where he can sell his paintings, not my space, his. I've been selling handmade fidget toys there for other autism families and I know how it works, how people actually care about the stories behind what they buy. Lucas can't tell people his story with words, but he can show them with every painting. And when someone buys his art on Tedooo app, they're not just getting a picture. They're telling my silent boy that his voice matters even when it makes no sound.
He's already started three more paintings tonight. I think he finally knows what I've always known. He has something to say.
