My son was aged eight and two months,  when his mother finally decided she would visit him in Scotland. Naturally as a very protective parent (some might say over protective ) I wanted to insure this visit would pass with out trouble or distress to my son. That left me with only one choice, hard though it was I had to lead my son to believe that I had no bad feelings towards his mother.

As she was always short of funds,  I assumed she thought she would be staying with us for the two nights she was visiting. I knew that was completely unacceptable,  as I could not guarantee an atmosphere of conviviality.  So I booked her into a local Bed and Breakfast,  fully expecting to pay for her stay. In a phone call before her visit I explained what I had done, her response was complete silence so I put her out of her misery and told her I was paying for her accommodation. She may have had another motive for visiting, as well as seeing her son,  it is likely she thought a reconciliation was possible. That was the furthest thought from my mind.

Her obvious awkwardness on first seeing her son was palatable, and for me excruciating. My son however was oblivious to her discomfort and embarrassment. I was on a very large learning curve,  it had been 18 months since he saw his mother, he was definitely enjoying his new life, but off course he was missing his mother. I can only guess at how his autism would effect his emotions in this circumstance. I am sure he harbored thoughts of his parents reconciling. As it was,  we did all three of us spend some time together, I ,really out of some respect for my son.  I did not want to mislead him in any way,  or ruin the hard work that had been done over the last 18 months. So for the most part I left them in each others company.

I am not sure if she was trying to prove something to me, or if she was just plain nervous about being with our son. But the whole time she was with him, she tried to keep him occupied with a very elaborate art project. Had she had the time to finish we could have covered all the walls in our sitting room with a very funky looking collage. I would return from work to find the sitting room floor covered in paper,  and glue,  and material. It was as if she was afraid of just talking to him. My son however seemed happy enough. The visit ended with out incident, leaving me marveling at my son's ability to accept things, which was the complete opposite to what one might expect from an autistic child. The next time his mother was in Scotland it was to live.