My son takes the blame for many things in the minds of strangers. When you have a non-verbal child with autism and you get to a party late, they assume it’s him.

Nine times out of ten, it’s not. Sure, he can be the hold-out sometimes, but it could also be my teenage daughter locked in the bathroom well past the time we should have left. Other times , it’s me running through the house trying to find my car keys.

On those days, Lucas is waiting with his iPad to get in the car. When we’re ready, he’s ready. Smiling and holding the speaker of his tablet to his ear, he’ll even give a clap and laugh as he gets into the backseat.

If I leave a party early, most figure it’s because of him. Of course, that’s not always the case either. When he was little though, it was a built-in excuse to duck out of boring things. Party hosts handed it to me on a silver platter and I leaned into it.

After dinner, we want to show everyone the slide show of our trip to Nairobi. We understand if it’s late and Lucas has to get home.

Absolutely. He does. Yeah…that’s it. See you soon.

Do I regret doing that? Nah. He didn’t want to stay and, if I’m being honest, there were plenty of times when he was the genuine cause of our early departure. I’m not saying he wasn’t. I’m just saying that he wasn’t always the reason.

Don’t get me wrong. My little fella can be a fussbudget when he wants to. We’ve had horror days where he refused to get in or out of the car. We’d arrive at religious ceremonies all disheveled because I literally was wrestling with a giant suit-wearing boy in the backseat of my car.

I’ve had events that required sitting outside the building with him, causing me to miss all of whatever was happening. I had parties that I wanted to stay at, but couldn’t. Those things are all true. Any parent in my position knows the feeling and I’d be lying if I said it never happened.

That said, if you tally up the obligations of our lives, there have been far more things that my non-verbal child has endured for me without a peep. It needs to be said. It needs to be shared.

People who are or have been in our orbit recall those early departures and late arrivals. They could probably remember them vividly. That’s because, like a meltdown in public, it leaves a lasting impression. Things that deviate from the norm usually do. Your brain convinces you that moments like that happened far more than they truly did.

The truth is Lucas has been pretty amazing through the years when it comes to accomodating the schedules of me and his sister. If I made a lifetime spreadsheet of the events he sat through nicely versus the ones that he had issues at, I’m positive that he’d have an overwhelmingly higher amount of positives versus negatives.

It would also be weird if I kept a spreadsheet on that sort of thing.

He doesn’t get credit for the victories, though. While a screaming fit that causes us to leave before the cake is served gets a big reaction from everyone, the flipside never does. At most, on the way out, someone would say, “Lucas looks like he had a good time.”

And that’s it.

It stretches beyond leaving and arriving. Even his behavior at these things can be viewed on a lopsided scale. He could sit sweetly at a million parties, but the one where he plunges his hands into a pair of cupcakes and tracks it through the house is the one no one can stop talking about.

Maybe he a bad day. I’ve had them too. There have been events that I wasn’t up for and parties I wasn’t feeling. I’ve endured conversations with morons that last forever and awful food that I eat know will make me sick. My child with autism isn’t the only one who wants to leave early sometimes.

As he’s gotten older, Lucas has gotten so much better when it comes to engagements like these. Noticing this, I can look back and realize that he’s made this effort throughout his life and succeeded in finding his place with his family. He gives us the same respect we give him. It’s been a huge surge of maturity.

What I’m saying is that I’m proud of him. I wanted to acknowledge that. For a boy like mine, there’s always so much talk about what he needs to learn or do and not enough about the things he does for us. His patience when it comes to driving his sister somewhere at the drop of a hat can go unnoticed.

So, I’m noticing them. It’s easy to miss the little achievements if you’re not looking for them. Many things I hoped he would do when he was little might still not have happened. But some of the things I hoped he would do when he was little did happen. Learning to go with the flow and being a part of this family are examples of that.

My son deserves recognition. After all, it’s the small, everyday triumphs that truly shape the character of a person. And in these, Lucas truly excels.