It’s painful that he doesn’t have the same opportunity. I’ve also had that realization of “he doesn’t have one single friend.”

I felt he developed some friends at his wonderful camp this summer — but how do you replicate that during the year? He’s cabbed to school a terrific distance from our home, and most of the kids are bussed, and though we’ve tried at times to invite kids over, or have parties, nothing enduring has occurred.

We’ve had times when we’ve invited every kid from Ben’s class to his birthday party, and only one showed up (part of the problem is that when kids are being bussed to a school, some parents don’t want to take the time to drive their child to after-school events, and they don’t follow up or reciprocate any outreaches we make). It’s been heartbreaking to watch Ben at the window on his birthday, asking/signing “where” are the other “friends?”, and not having a good reason as to why they didn’t come (or even call to RSVP).

I’m interested to see what other comments you get.

Beautiful post, Louise