Where Words Are Not Needed
We spend our afternoons outdoors now.
My son, almost five, leads the way—barefoot, bright-eyed, short hair tousled by the wind. We do not speak in sentences. But oh, how we understand one another.
He is nonspeaking.
He knows joy by heart.
And I have learned to follow it.
There is a swing on his playset across from the garden. I push him, slow and steady, and his laughter—a wild, open sound—breaks the sky wide. That smile, that gleam in his eyes, tells me everything. This is good. This is safe. This is love.
Push, pause. Push, pause.
This is our conversation.
Sometimes we dig together in the sandbox, hands busy, arms dusted in golden soil. Sometimes he jumps on his trampoline until the world disappears behind his laughter. I stand nearby, not to stop him, not to direct him—only to be with him. To bear witness.
He is beginning to form small sounds now. Gentle echoes. The soft beginnings of words that feel like sunlight coming through morning fog. He also uses AAC for simple requests—food, drink, favorite toys. I hear him. I always have. And now the world is starting to hear him too.
Raising him on this old farm feels like a gift stitched quietly into the folds of our days.
There is room to run.
Room to stim, to spin, to be.
No strangers watch. No one interrupts.
Only grass, sky, and the soft hush of leaves.
He studies everything—planes flying, clouds shifting, the feel of gravel under his fingers. And in the evenings, he looks for the moon. Sometimes he stops mid-play, craning his neck skyward, eyes wide with awe. The moon is his quiet friend, and space is his wonder. He is happiest with sky above him, and dirt beneath his feet.
I used to wish I could explain things to him with words. Now I know: we are always communicating. Just not with paragraphs.
We speak in rhythms.
In glances.
In the slow, sacred language of play.
And that is enough.
More than enough.
It is the purest kind of presence.
And it blooms best in the quiet.
—L.B.
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