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I never knew the term “eloper” before I became the parent of a child with autism. If I had heard it before, I probably would have assumed it meant someone who secretly marries people in Vegas.

It’s not.

Eloper is a nice way of saying “my kid likes to run off into the night without any sense of danger or direction.” It comes with multiple locks, constant surveillance, and a deep fear of seeing the back door wide open when you wake up in the morning.

Lucas, my non-verbal 14-year-old, is not an eloper.

Wait for it…

Anymore.

When my guy was tiny, he loved to run. That was his thing. Full of energy and excitement, my son’s need for speed became a constant battle. He’d dart through the mall, run through the house, and struggle to break free in every public setting. He was always one distracted moment away from being a milk carton celebrity.

So what is a parent to do in that situation? Well, you get a gate for their room.

Here’s the crazy part. To me, “the gate” sounds like a regular accessory in the house. Fridge, bathtub, gate. All part of my home layout. I talk about it like it’s nothing.

Someone will ask me, “Does Lucas wander around in the night?”

Oh, no. He has the gate.

And then they stare at me. Sometimes I pick up on it, other times I don’t, leaving them to question what I’m talking about.

I guess that’s on me for not remembering the time before I had Lucas. What would I have thought if I heard that a parent had a gate on the doorway of their teenage son’s room? I would have thought some terrible things.

Is it a cage? A locked door? Is the kid out of control? Is he locked in there like some sort of beast? Does the dad toss raw meat in just to keep him calm? What is going on in that house?

Truth? It’s none of those things.

Basically, it’s a baby gate. Sure, it’s one of the largest ones you can get and looks like a metal garden gate. It opens like a door and has a secure latch. It’s nothing even close to what someone would assume.

It has to be a big gate to trap a giant boy like mine, though, right?

No.

Lucas’s gate is up to my mid-thigh. It’s been the same brand and model since he was five years old. Back then, it was giant to him. Today, he could climb over it with one big step if he wanted to. Yet, he never has.

That gate, originally designed to trap him from running away with the dark carnival while we were all asleep, has become a fixture in our home. It’s also become a fixture in his life.

Which brings us to the next question those might be wondering – why is it still there?

I mean, I’ve already told you that Captain Elopement doesn’t run away anymore. He’s been maturing by the year and has learned to control himself in so many ways. Why not remove it?

Because he loves it.

Yeah, Lucas has come to see that gate as an extension of his room. Today, as a teenager, he will go into his room and close the gate behind him. In his mind, it’s there to keep people out, just as we once saw it as a way to keep him in.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s useful when there’s a lit candle downstairs or I want to make sure he doesn’t raid the fridge like Garfield at 3 in the morning. I get peace of mind knowing that Lucas’s whereabouts are known.

Still, it’s more for Lucas than it is for me at this point. He even invented a hand gesture that tells me to close it and go away. Seriously.

The first time I saw it, I was confused. Lucas was sitting in his bed, surrounded by picture books and tablets. I went to the doorway and did my usual annoying dad greeting.

Hey, Mr. Lucas! Whatcha doing? Want to hang out with your dad?

He lifted his right hand and opened and closed it, like a soft wave. At first, I thought it was a quirky hello.

Confused, I waved back. So he repeated the motion, this time with more vigor.

It took a minute to realize that he was making the hand motion of closing the gate. Once I did, I closed the door behind it. Slowly, I watched him through the crack, peering back. The final image I saw as it closed was Lucas going back to his iPad, as if to say, “Yeah. That’s it. Now bugger off.”

Will he have a gate on his door well into adulthood? There would have been a time that I would have sworn against it. In fact, years ago, I wrote about wanting to take it away. In my mind, he needed to learn safety and responsibility. In my mind, there was no way to do that without removing his safety barrier.

Today, I know that wasn’t true.

Lucas learned responsibility and safety, even with the metal barricade protecting him from the outside elements. In fact, that metal barricade became his own safe space.

I’m glad I let him keep it.

The Cause Of My Son’s Autism

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