“Is that James?” I heard the stage-whisper behind me. “The one who…” the voice trailed off, or I stopped listening, or both, because I didn’t want to feel the impact of what would come next, even out of a child’s mouth. The one who…has autism? The one who…talks funny? The one who…is different?

I’ve heard it all before. I don’t need to hear it again, and I certainly don’t want to feel the barrage of emotions that come afterward: the fear over his future, the guilt over his past, the anxiety over his present. But I’ve promised myself I’d make space for all the feelings, all the grief and pain and joy, because…well, therapists recommend it. So there’s that. But I also know from experience that anything else is just a lie. And I did that long enough. Like, for almost thirty years. Living in a space of denial isn’t living it all, it’s just putting a pretty filter on things and not knowing who you are. So I waited until we got home, and we bathed the boys and put them to bed, and then I climbed into bed and felt it. Then The Husband climbed into bed and I told him about it. And a funny thing happened.

It wasn’t like the times before.

This time, I didn’t grasp at hope like a blind woman looking for light. This time, I thought it and said it: how it hurt, how it sucks, but also: what has changed. How far he’s come. How–and not that long ago, this may have been wishful thinking, but on this night it was real–how there’s a growing part of me that is so inexpressibly thankful he’s not like other kids. Because it means the differences are adding up to something you can’t filter out, and it’s beautiful.

And I know, in saying all this, that it’s a description and reflection of the corner we’ve turned. Lately he’s been asking so many questions, and the memories that pop up on my phone aren’t just reminders to me, but offerings to him: here you are before your x-ray two years ago, last year. Here you are in the hospital after they fixed your neck. Look at that hat you had to wear! He asks about the surgery, which broken bone it fixed. He sees his own tilted head, and watching him as he takes it in, I almost can’t catch my breath: it’s like watching the sun rise. He asks about the body parts he sees in his book: the skull and the brain, the bones and muscle, the kidneys and bladder and intestines, and as he provides a brief recap of the way I’ve told him the digestive system works, I think back to a year ago, when he was just stringing three words together; how a year before that, when there wasn’t a sound. He asks about feelings, what they mean, and tells me about his day at school: who got in trouble (or “told off,” here) and was sent to reflection time. He mentions his classmates by name. He is seeing them, and knowing them.

And they are knowing him.

On Monday, the school handyman walked over to me with a box in his hands. Inside it was a model Chevrolet, still screwed into its stand, white and blue paint gleaming. “I’ve got more at home. I’ll bring them,” he said. The other kids gathered around, exclaiming. The next day, the girl named after a flower brought a sack of cars herself. “They were at my granny’s,” she said. “I knew James would like them.” On the way home that morning, H’s mom told me that they want to have him over for a playdate, and that they need to have popcorn and chocolate chip cookies because “those are James’s favourite.” That afternoon, his teacher told me that the other kids fight over who gets to walk with him to the playground. I emailed the mother of the boy in his class who’s looked out for him from day one, and when I saw her husband the next day he told me that she’d cried before she emailed me back to arrange a playdate.

Meanwhile, Little Brother sits in the waiting room with me at the therapy centre and approaches strangers who exclaim over his cuteness and teach him Chinese. His language is like an avalanche, building every day. He tells me when he’s sad or mad or happy, casually tosses out over lunch that “I love you, Mommy.” He tells me the feelings that I struggle to define to The Kid. We are parenting two different people. I am two different moms. It wasn’t what I planned. It’s hard as shit sometimes. It’s also pretty fantastic.

When the little redhead, one of two of them (three if you count me), comes out to me on the bench for reading, she tells me that the kid I sent to find her thought she wasn’t there. Like she was invisible or something. Oh girl, I think. I know THAT one. And I consider the threads that run through all of us, that make us more alike than different. How an email can make one mother cry while sending it, and another while reading it, for the same reason: this complicated, raw, pulsing love that tears us apart while it holds us together because it all comes from the same ultimate love: the one that has designs on all of us, weaving our stories together in ways we never expected or would have chosen. Never would I have wanted this to be the way TK would become so beloved. Never will I be the same because it is.

This love that is present perfect tense even as nothing is perfect but it, that transforms executions into coronations and death into life, that forces us past the first layer of ourselves and others, so that no matter how many times we relive it, each time is like the first. But different. But the same.

This love that is sitting with me as one of the other moms sees TK’s new car and tells him: “What a lucky boy you are!” And the me who would have bitterly laughed not long ago, internally reviewing all the scans and doctor visits and surgeries and therapies, she scampers off to a different space as I inhabit this one: this one where he is quite a lucky boy. This one where James? Oh, he’s the one who…has a brother who always asks after him, who won’t calm down until he knows he’s okay, who embraces him and gazes at him with wonder. He’s the one who…loves cars. And everyone knows it.