Le Y. Win
One afternoon during the rainy season in Myanmar, I played with my tea set and watched the rain drench
the earth. My brother, Chan, fifteen years old and six years my senior, sat a few feet away, eating cookies
with the babysitter. Suddenly, a cookie tin flew through the air and crashed into my forehead.
As I looked up, Chan was calmly observing me. The world began whirling around me as my aunt raced
in, her face full of
concern, and the babysitter screamed, “ Are you alright?! ” I answered by losing consciousness.
The faint scar still reminds me of that confusingly normal event. It was just another one of my brother’s
moments. As a little girl, I didn’t know that he was autistic. I only knew that he was prone to bizarre acts
that sometimes injured himself or others. My parents couldn’t explain his behavior; they just asked me to
forgive him.
I tried playing with him, but he would break my toys or accidentally hurt me. I tried eating with him, but
he would always take food from my plate. I tried to forgive him, but he would get away with these behav–
iors again and again. This felt unfair to me.
Two years later, I moved to America. During summer visits to Myanmar, I got to know Chan better and
began to feel that my brother’s mysterious world is also my world. I wanted to better understand this
world, so for the past two summers, I’ve accompanied Chan to his daily classes at the school for disabled
children. Eventually, I would stay all day to observe, to try to understand his world for the first time.
One day, when he was crying on the floor, I noticed the teacher didn’t yell at him. Instead, she went near
him, patted him on the back, and looked into his eyes. “ It’s Okay, Chan. Stop crying and tell me what you
want. ” He replied “ Want marker ” and became calmer. As she left his side, she promised him a marker.
Satisfied, Chan went back to doing his puzzle. To me, that was a magical moment. I saw a different side
of my brother: he doesn’t have words to communicate his frustration, so he uses body language instead.
Since then, I’ve learned that he can only think like a three or four year-old, which is why he still can’t feed