Very little was known about Autism in the late 80’s. In fact many Special Ed books at UVA only had one page on the subject. So my mom was invited several times to talk to a class about what it was like raising an autistic child.

Psychic

We got some weird advice when we finally did learn Lee had autism. One well-meaning friend paid for us to visit a psychic.

She said Lee had been an Indian in a past life and that is why he liked to walk around naked. He had been a monk in another past life who took a vow of silence. That was supposed to explain why he did not talk. There was also the story of him being a German named Otto. Who realized Hitler was bad and tried to save his family and drive them over the Swiss Alps but got caught... watched his family be tortured and then killed. This explained why Lee didn’t want to get emotionally attached to us now for fear of hurting us again. Yeah right.....