Communication Skills

One great thing about my friends Anne & Jeff Kayser is that they keep me up-to-date on communication skills. They are experts at difficult communications, having learned from experience with their autistic son Thomas. Tom is a sweet boy and David and I enjoyed spending time with him and his parents last night at dinner. He communicates so much better than he used to, and is delightful to be around. He tells jokes! And his jokes are funny!

Anne and I are in SpiritFish, a group of writers who get together about once a month to share our writings and encourage each other to hone our craft. One of the members shared a YouTube video with us yesterday that Anne & I watched together. You can see it here. It's about a person who is autistic describing their language processes. Judge for yourself.

But what I found even more delightful was an email exchange between Julia (who is at Stanford) and her little brother Tom.

From: Julia
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 6:19 PM
To: Anne Kayser
Subject: For Tom

Hi, Tom! How are you doing? How is school? Is running on the cross country team fun?I miss you. Today I missed you so much that I hummed Leroy Anderson's "Bugler's Holiday!" What track number is that?

LEIFO EATS WORMS!

I love you! I'll see you on the computer again on Sunday night at five o-clock.~Julia

To which Tom replied:

Dear Julia

Leroy Anderson's Buglers Holiday is track number 13

Mommy's corvax! How are you doing? Do you get sunscreen on the dogs ears ?

I'm running with Matt. Do you miss Julia? I love you Julia. Do dogs get sunburned? November 22 we fly to Florida ! dogs don't get sunburned that's silly! Are you telling jokes!
Julia will be home for Thanksgiving. I like turkey!

Love Tom

I wish any of my four brothers communicated this nicely with me and, at the very least, told me that they loved me.