Book cover of my brother Loren's memoirs,
 printed three months after he died suddenly. 

There is a lot of public awareness of and lots of services in the Toledo area,and across the US, for people of all ages with Asperger's Syndrome and Autism. This wasn't so when my brother Loren was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. How different it would have been if he had had early diagnosis and intervention in his life. Instead, he coped with it on his own until he found his own way. I write this blog in memory of my brother, and for all the Aspies out there who should never give up.

It's my beloved brother Loren's birthday.  It's been 10 years, a decade, since he took his last hike on the Aucilla River with the Florida Trail Association.  It's hard to believe. It feels like yesterday. I was serving in Ukraine with the Peace Corps when I got the early morning call from my sister Andy, a million miles away in Tallahassee, Florida.  I still reel from the news when I think about it.  

I lost my soulmate, the person who taught me about facing obstacles with courage and hope.  Loren faced his challenges head on, searching ceaselessly for meaning and purpose in his life.  He accepted his Asperger diagnosis, at age 55, with relief, relief that there was a name for the social challenges he had faced since birth.  Loren was an Aspie with purpose. That's how he described himself. 


I was the historian but he was the genius. He held a myriad of knowledge in his head, and shared it openly, freely; some said too openly and too freely.  Sometimes Loren would get so enthusiastic it was hard to stop him.  He didn't catch those subtle verbal cues and unspoken hints.  It was hard for him, and people got impatient, dismissed him, left him on the margins.  He knew it. He fought it.  

  
But what knowledge he had, about every subject imaginable!  Sports, history, the natural world, the solar system and the planets, social ecology, women's history and the goddess, you name it. Encyclopedic, with an awesome cosmic perspective.  Sure he went over the top sometimes. But he came to recognize it, deal with it, gain in those common social skills that most ordinary mortals learn early on.

But he wouldn't have been Loren if he had been ordinary.  Loren was extraordinary.  He was passionate about life. And the kindest person I ever met. He taught me how to see life from a different angle. He took me to places I had never been before, to new ways of seeing the world, the transcendent, eternity.

It's what I loved about him. It's what I can never replace, what I miss.  How I wish I could believe he's in a better place. "There are no ends in nature, only beginnings," he would say.  My friend Doris believes it.  She said, when I visited her in California a few years ago, "I feel his ongoing spirit from another dimension.  He's cheering you on, Fran, as you continue your life's work."  I believe I see Loren whenever I look at the moon. I see him whenever a red cardinal flies by my angle of vision, sitting on my front porch, walking in Wildwood with my daughters Elissa and Michelle, on walks around our neighborhood. I feel his presence, feel his love, and return it with all the energy I have. Happy birthday dearest Loren, from all of us who love you dearly, forever.. 



Loren's memorial bench, in northern Florida.

Andy is remembeing our trip to Amsteram today. 

                She misses you every day. 

This is what Loren believed and lived.