WRITING
Out of the Woods
A life-altering diagnosis sends a family in search of a place to call home - by May Cobb
When our son, Johnny, turned 10 months old on Mother’s Day, he babbled his first words to us: “Mama-mama-mama.” It was the most exquisite Mother’s Day gift ever.
But soon after that, silence. No words. His pediatrician had detected fluid in both ears, and we theorized that might be the cause. Because surely—I hoped as I lay awake in the middle of the night, my thoughts boiling like a disturbed ant bed—it was only a speech delay and not an indicator of something more serious.
Months later, though, still no speech. And there were other red flags. Not a total lack of eye contact but nothing sustained either. An interest in watching the ceiling fan whir. Not waving when someone waved to him.
I remembered once driving from our one-story tract home in East Austin down Burleson Road through the industrial district to take Johnny to preschool and seeing a billboard for the organization Autism Speaks. On it, a giant puzzle piece and a call for parents to look for symptoms. My stomach clenched, though I’d been reassured by his doctor, and by others I trusted, that he was far too young for such a diagnosis.
Author May Cobb Just Can’t Quit East Texas
The Hunting Wives writer shares how her hometown of Longview inspires her hit thriller novels - by May Cobb
The tangy spring air, heavy with honeysuckle; the jackhammer sound of a woodpecker drilling into russet-colored pine bark; the thud of football-size pine cones on a red-dirt forest floor—this is the setting of my childhood in Longview, an East Texas town sandwiched between Marshall and Kilgore on U.S. Highway 80. It holds unimaginable beauty, but also dark secrets that won’t keep speaking to me.
Longview has become the thread running through both of my novels, Big Woods and The Hunting Wives. The town is situated deep in the midst of a lush, bucolic pine forest—so woodsy that it defies what most people think of when they think of Texas—and those woods are not just a backdrop but have almost become a character in my thrillers. As beautiful as they are, they have a sort of haunted eeriness to them, one that I can’t seem to shake.
We had a great day at the park with our autistic son, until someone called the police
By May Cobb
It had been a good day at the park. A miracle day, in fact, for our family. Our 5-year-old son, who is moderately autistic and prone to violent outbursts and self-injurious behavior, had sailed through the outing without a meltdown. So it was all the more shocking when the police approached us.
It was a Sunday, four days before Thanksgiving, and my mom was in town visiting. My son had a good morning, and feeling encouraged by that, we selected a new park to visit, the boardwalk on Lady Bird Lake in Austin.
We had been struggling for weeks with getting (and keeping) my son dressed. He had been in a protest phase with his clothes and diaper, but on this morning, he not only let us dress him, he even selected his pants. Sure, they were a size too small and the legs crept up like high waters, but we were thrilled he had chosen them himself.
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SONGS OF OUR LIVES: RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK’S “THE INFLATED TEAR”
By May Cobb
Eighteen years ago a song unlike any music I’d ever heard by someone I’d never heard of before altered the course of my life. One day in a jazz history class, amid the staples of Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis, the professor slipped on a record by Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
“The Inflated Tear” sounded like the entire spectrum of the history of African-American music rolled into one four-minute song: old slavery spirituals, work songs, field hollers, soul, modern jazz, and early blues. It was like a Duke Ellington reed section, yet more emotional, more intimate, with a sound that ached of centuries. It was like listening to the inside of someone’s heart.