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FROM A VERY YOUNG AGE, Amara Delaney Reid had exhibited deficiencies in her ability to communicate with others. Her mother, Eurydice, had rarely woken up to the sound of her daughter wailing in the early hours of dawn. Amara had seldom taken interest in spectacles such as rainbows as they arced across the sky, or the music that birds released from their pointed beaks. She often appeared to be lost in a world of her own, the fluorescent galaxies in her mind far more appealing to her than her actual surroundings. After two years of tracking Amara's behavioral patterns on a chart with two columns, the one on the right listed with how her older brother Kevin had acted at her age, Eurydice and her husband, Scott, scheduled an appointment with Amara's pediatrician, who contacted a doctor that specialized in neuropsychology. After meeting the peculiar girl in person, the doctor diagnosed her with a little-known neurological disorder called autism.
PERHAPS IF AMARA HAD BEEN BORN in the future – like in 2002, maybe – she could live in a world that was more accepting of people with such diagnoses, possibly one where there was such a thing as special ed schools. Maybe by the 21st century, Sesame Street would include a character with ADHD or Asperger's or some other defect. But to her misfortune, she was born in 1967 - in other words, a time where people barely knew what autism was. Society viewed people like Amara to be defective beings that belonged in mental asylums. A significant number of parents refused to have their kids vaccinated out of fear that they would develop autism. Of the twelve million Adolf Hitler had murdered, a number of whom included Amara's Jewish family, the mentally disabled were among the tortured, their frail bodies cremated alongside Jews and others deemed inferior by the Aryan race. Even in America, the so-called Land of Opportunity, people like Amara were given no chance to build an identity outside of their labels.
AMARA FOUGHT AGAINST HER UNIQUELY WIRED BRAIN throughout her years of elementary and middle school. She excelled in areas such as science and math, subjects based on concrete data and unchanging formulas. Sixteen divided by four would always equal four, and the earth would always orbit the sun. Systematic information came naturally to her, whereas she struggled to understand the ever-changing concepts of English. She also failed to read social cues from her friends, like the tone their voices would adapt to when they were sick of Amara bringing up past events, or the stress lining their facial features when they crammed for tests at the last minute. Even the teachers sensed that something about Amara was different. She was the only person in the entire school without a definitive IQ, and she stuck out from the crowd like a sore thumb. The principal scheduled a conference with Scott and Eurydice halfway through Amara's second year of elementary school that ended with her being expelled because, according to Principal Goodrich's logic, your daughter belongs in an asylum.
AMARA ATTENDED FIVE SCHOOLS IN NINE YEARS. Her teachers always managed to uncover the secrets behind her numerous transfers, or her offhand comments while class was in session, or her inability to collaborate with others for group projects. No one was willing to provide her with the social and emotional support she needed to grow because, as mentioned before, society believed that people like Amara were incapable of facing the world's bumps and curves. Eurydice was disgusted by this logic. If Helen Keller had gotten by without the help of sight or sound, why was society so certain that her baby was unable to accomplish greatness as well? She remembered the day Amara was born; in the midst of the blood and tears, Eurydice had felt an immediate rush of love for the small creature in her arms and had made a silent vow to always cherish her, no matter who she turned out to be. She abided by that promise to this very day, despite her daughter's diagnosis.
