What do you notice about this photo? In regard to the position of Charlie  (left, in the water; the nose of his blue boogie board is just visible) to Jim (right)? Keeping in mind, I’m on the sand taking the photo.

Yup, Charlie is out in the waves, and Jim and I are watching from the shore.

Yesterday afternoon wasn’t the only time we did this. There’s been quite a few times that Charlie’s walked onto the beach, said “boogie board,” we’ve fastened the strap round his left wrist and into the waves he goes, solo. Jim does go in when Charlie’s getting beyond the orange flag that signals where you’re not to swim beyond; Charlie lets the current take him where he will, keeps going after one more wave, and doesn’t want to hear dear old Dad saying he needs to come in closer to the shore.

The ocean is the great equalizer for Charlie---he’s a 12-year-old boy first and foremost, diagnosed and diagnosis-less, straining for his independence and annoyed to no end to hear his parents placing limits and saying “be safe.”

Charlie is taller (far taller) than most of the children on the beach. When I see them, I can’t help thinking of my boy when he was all skinny limbs and clamored for us (both of us---this was when he was 6 and under) to carry him. Charlie was fascinated, absorbed, obsessed with the waves and quite reluctant to venture into them without Jim and me supporting him. Then we thought it’d be enough if Charlie could learn to hold onto his board and stay atop it. We knew we’d feel beyond joyous if could learn to swim so he could jump and splash in the waves like the other laughing kids around us.

But Charlie swimming; boogie boarding; laying himself flat on his boogie and, surfer-style, paddling out to seat, and all alone while Jim and I stood on the sand and watched?  Talk about fuhgeddaboutit.

There’s a little photo of me carrying Charlie on the beach accompanying an essay, An Unexpected Childhood, that I wrote back in 2003 about Charlie. As I wrote then:

With a child like Charlie, you hear so much about impairments, deficits, limits, problems, behaviors. But shouldn’t we rather think about how much a child like Charlie can do that goes beyond what we dare to hope for, beyond our every expectation?