A new book arrived yesterday in the mail: The Spark, by Kristine Barnett. I already felt some kinship - Kristine’s younger sister Stephanie, a gifted artist studying art at our local university,
worked for me as an amazingly creative cake decorator in my bakery in the
90’s. Stephanie was incredibly
proficient and always dependable. She
consistently motivated her co-workers, respectfully served our patrons, and
made a special effort to encourage me.
She also seemed to understand and celebrate something I needed: hope. From what I'd heard, it seemed Kristine shared her sister’s hard-working,
optimistic approach to life. Naturally I was drawn to explore The Spark.
I began reading with a casual but interested mindset,
knowing I was going to learn about Kristine’s journey with Jacob, her autistic
son. However, before long I was swept
into deep waters by the compelling nature of her story, and her honest and artful
telling of it. Simply put, I couldn’t
put the book down. I finished it today,
all 257 pages.
The Spark is the
story of a busy mother who operates a daycare center and after-hour program for
special needs children in her home, a mother who searches beyond trained
professionals, even into the depths of her own intuition, in order to rescue
her young autistic son before it is too late. This is the story of a mother who embraces overwhelming
struggle to fight her way through complicated parenting issues, crippling financial
loss, and a crisis with her own health: a stroke. This is a story of a mother whose stubborn
love and relish for life – the kind of sacrificial, other-centered, hard-working,
creative life she and Stephanie learned at the hand of Amish
grandparents when they were children – lifts her above many obstacles that
might daunt others. In reality,
she forges ahead to shine like a beacon in the community, founding a center for
autistic children and their families. It
is an inspirational, captivating story.
Kristine invites readers to accompany her during the first
fifteen years of her son Jake’s life. First Jake is issued an early autistic prognosis:
“he will never speak.” His life is
controlled by a rigorous schedule of special ed classes and additional
therapies. Then in a rash but carefully calculated moment of clarity, Kristing ditches
the schedule, enabling Jake to emerge and develop an identity as a brilliant child prodigy. Because of Kristine’s persistent belief in
him, and her insistence in helping him find and develop his own unique spark
(which also means leaving behind trained professionals and following an
uncharted course), he is unleashed from his autistic cage. He enrolls in college courses as a
10-year-old, and soon tutors students twice his age. At the writing of the book, Jake is 15 and considered
among the world’s most prominent physicists.
A Nobel Prize potentially awaits him.
But there is so much more to Kristine’s tale than the story
of Jake’s miraculous overcoming. It is a
story to inspire parents of young children everywhere, in all walks of life –
parents raising typical children, and those who are not-so-typical. Kristine’s principle, one now recognized by admiring
therapists and teachers sprinkled across the globe, applies in every case:
trust a young child to show you his passions (before he learns he’s supposed to
please you and cram himself into a mold), and he will show you his own unique path in life. The parent’s job becomes advocacy – enabling
and supporting him to go for it.
In her postscript to The
Spark, Kristine says this: “If you
fuel a child’s innate spark, it will always
point the way to far greater heights than you could ever have
imagined. It’s hard to trust your child
to find his or her own path, especially when we’re told every day by
professionals that children must fit into rigid boxes. We all want to give our
kids the best opportunities we can, which is why it feels like such a
disservice if we don’t push them in the “right” direction. Celebrating your children’s passions rather
than redirecting them, especially when those passions don’t line up neatly with
a checklist for future success, can feel like jumping off a cliff. It certainly did for me. But that leap of faith is necessary if your
kids are going to fly.”
Reading The Spark
has inspired me, as a grandmother, to study my ten (soon to be eleven)
grandchildren more closely – to respect them as individuals with gifts and
passions that need to be recognized and nurtured. A special needs grandson with a chromosomal
deletion runs with our herd, and I have to wonder if his early interest in lines,
and more recent interest in shadows, could actually be a port to another realm. Perhaps this is where we can come alongside
and share the reality that is uniquely his.
Perhaps in the process we might also foster his potential and set him
free to be himself.
