Being as how today is Halloween, I had originally intended to write about some of Ben's experiences at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party - maybe include some cute pictures of Doctor Ben or Cowboy Ben. But then yesterday something happened at school: while out on a Community Inclusion field trip, Ben ran away from his group. They were supposed to be going to a Dollar Store to practice shopping from a list as well as money handling, but Ben wanted to go to the library next door instead. At his first opportunity he dashed away from his group so that he could go look for his favorite book (it's a Disney Golden Book of The Sorcerer's Apprentice). Had he not been so closely watched, he could have disappeared in a heartbeat. The sad fact is that among autistic children elopement is a very serious, and often times life threatening, problem.

Whenever we have new visitors to our home, they are sometimes confused by the fact that we have a keyed deadbolt on the inside of our door. I have no doubt that our current home security would make the local fire marshal cry, with double cylinder locks on every exit door. It's been that way from the day we bought our house, and it was that way on the previous two apartments I lived in prior to becoming a homeowner. I've lived with it for so long (over a dozen years now) that it seems completely normal and sensible to me. Who doesn't have to use a key to leave their house? Turns out the answer is "normal people who don't have autistic children".

My single worst and most recurring nightmare is that Ben walks out of the house one day, I don't notice for a few minutes, and by the time I start looking for him he is gone. Just plain gone, lost and wandering alone and scared. That's not a theoretical fear, it has happened more than once.

We had had a few small scares when he was very young, but the first time that he absolutely terrified me was one day about twelve years ago when we were living in Seattle. We had come home from grocery shopping, and as soon as we got inside and closed the door I dashed to the bathroom. I was in there for literally three minutes, and when I came out I immediately saw that the front door was open and Ben was gone. I ran outside in a panic, calling his name over and over again.  Where was he? I searched the courtyard in front of the building, no sign of him, looked up and down the sidewalk both ways, again no sign. We were only two blocks away from a very busy street, and already I was picturing the worst. It would be so easy for him to simply step out into traffic without realizing the danger. Even failing that, it would take very little for him to get hopelessly lost. He was completely non-verbal at that time, and avoided strangers anyway, so it would be impossible for him to ask for help. He could be alone and terrified right now, in a panic and feeling completely abandoned. Either his mother or I had always been there for him, every moment of his life, why had we deserted him now?

He had only been missing for a few minutes, and I was already distraught. All I could think of was a story I had read about an autistic boy in Florida who had wandered out his front door. This was in Port Canaveral right near where the cruise ships dock. While the boy's family was frantically searching for him, he somehow found himself on the boarding plank for a cruise ship. He blended in with a family that was boarding - they thought he was with some other family, and the employee watching them board thought the boy belonged to the group he walked in behind. The ship continued to load, and the autistic boy just wandered around the ship looking at things. As the boy's family continued the search in Port Canaveral, the ship left port and began sailing south. Hours went by, it grew dark, and the boy's family pleaded on the local news for everyone to help search for their missing child. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, their child was happily exploring the giant ship and having a grand time. At some point one of the ship's employees found the boy wandering, and tried to find out what stateroom his family was in. Of course the boy was completely non-verbal and could not even give his own name. It grew later and later, and no family on board had contacted security about a missing child. Employees went room-to-room, asking families if they knew this child, but nobody did. It was finally a reporter in Miami who put the pieces of the puzzle together - he saw the news item about a missing autistic boy in Port Canaveral, he saw the news item about a mystery boy on board a cruise ship, and he realized what must have happened. A few phone calls later and the ship's crew was able to confirm with local police that this was in fact the same child. The ship made an unscheduled stop in Miami, and the boy's family rushed down the Florida coast to retrieve their lost child. In the end the boy was completely unharmed, but the fact still remains - the family took their eyes off him for just a few minutes and he wound up hundreds of miles away from home.

The simple truth is, no matter how vigilant you are this can happen to anyone. It is physically impossible to have your eyes on your child non-stop all day every day. Even in a perfect and happy world that is just not possible, and believe me when I tell you that being the parent of an autistic child is far, far away from being a perfect and happy world. I am not saying that it is a completely miserable and unrewarding life, but the truth remains that caring for a special needs child is a very physically and emotionally draining experience. You will make mistakes, it is inevitable. You just do your best to minimize those mistakes by putting systems in place to help prevent them, and by planning out in advance how to deal with any given emergency as best as possible.  I get an email in my inbox every single day, comprised of news  headlines with "autism" as a keyword. Too often I see  a headline about an autistic child that eloped, with a tragic ending. As they say, there but for the grace of God go I.

So what happened that day when Ben disappeared? Well, as I stood in the apartment courtyard calling out his name and preparing to call 911, one of my neighbors from the next building came out and approached me.  "Excuse me," she said, "are you looking for a little blonde haired boy about this tall?"

"Oh my God, yes!" I replied. "Have you seen him?!?"

"Um. He just walked into my apartment.  He didn't knock or anything, he just walked in and then sat on my couch and started watching television. He wouldn't say anything at all...."

So Ben was safe, he was never more than thirty yards away from me. My neighbor was very nice when I explained about Ben's autism, and I was so incredibly relieved I cannot even describe it.  Five minutes.  That's how long he was gone, just five minutes and I was already terrified. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to go for hours... days... weeks without knowing. Or knowing but discovering the worst. This is the fear that sometimes wakes me up at night even now.

And this is why my house has keyed deadbolts from the inside. Eloping was cool when I did it with my wife, but when it comes to my son elopement is deadly serious.