At the “It’s All About the Animals” cat shelter on Saturday morning, it was all about the kittens. Two momma cats gave birth the morning of April 23, but one small skinny “super-sweet” calico cat in particular was the star of the day when she delivered a super-size litter of kittens.

The young, pregnant, petite-framed cat arrived at the cat shelter in Rochester three weeks ago and recently caused quite a stir when her extraordinary pregnancy x-ray showed a triple-size litter of kittens. Twelve to be exact – far exceeding the average four to six kittens any regular cat pregnancy would produce.

“She was huge!” said Pamela Robinson, owner of the cat shelter, who eventually named the cat “Waddles” because of how she walked side-to-side with what Robinson described as “two great big balls” on each side of her. “When I saw the x-ray, I couldn’t even talk. It was like, where do you start counting?”

A litter of this size is pretty unusual, said Robinson. “Very unusual. It’s a big litter, that’s all I can tell you.”

On April 23, Waddles delivered 12 kittens and 10 survived. Waddles has her work cut out for her with only six nipples with which to feed her young. Robinson said all 10 kittens will need to be supplemented by bottle-feeding, which means that Robinson also has her work cut out for her.

Dr. Kimberly Suh of the Marion Animal Hospital assisted in the delivery of Waddles’ kittens, just in time before Suh moves away to Georgia, said Robinson.

“So this is going to be her going away present, and she is going to get to name all ten babies,” Robinson said.

It’s All About the Animals has limited its visiting hours to Sundays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm during its renovation. More information on the 501(c)(3) and the cats and kittens up for adoption can be found by visiting www.itsallabouttheanimals.org.

By Jean Perry

Grace and Ariel Costa-Medeiros are sisters who live in Marion. They both went to Old Rochester Regional High School and are both 19. That’s right, they are twins and they both have a passion for what they do – Grace with her sewing and Ariel with her writing and graphic art.

As far as twins are concerned, they certainly aren’t identical. Their mom, Susana, says Ariel takes after their dad, who is more quiet and down to earth, while Grace takes after Susana, who is the more spirited, enthusiastic and lively of the two parents.

Yes, the two young ladies share a set of parents, a home, and a birthday, but they also share something else: they both have a place on the autism spectrum and both, with the support of their family, school, and community resources, are using their strengths to carve out a pathway to fulfillment and inclusion in their community.

Grace doesn’t talk much. She much prefers hugs from her mom and has her own unique ways of communicating her needs and wants. She loves to swim, watch DVDs, and likes watching ballet performances, but what Grace really likes to do is sew. She found she had the knack for sewing when she was rather young and her grandmother, a seamstress, introduced Grace to the needle and thread, buttons, and the sewing machine.

Susana said the school was very supportive of Grace’s interest, helping to nurture that strength and making it part of her school curriculum. The autism specialist, Cathy Freeman, was a particular influence for Grace, Susana said.

“Cathy really started this,” said Susana. “Cathy bought a few of these sewing kits … that come with these felt shapes of animals. Gracie really liked them, so Cathy made about another hundred of those herself and Gracie loved them.”

Freeman said that ever since she knew Grace during her first years with Project Grow, Grace always loved working with her hands.

“She’s a wonderful seamstress and she does a fabulous job,” said Freeman. “Not only is she able to get real satisfaction for herself, but also a potential career.”

Outside of school, Grace takes part in the Building Futures Project with the Nemasket Group in Fairhaven. The program provides support for students with extra needs and helps prepare them for life in the community after high school.

Susana said Grace’s involvement with the workers at the Building Futures Project has “broadened Gracie’s world.”

“Between [the Building Futures Program] and Cathy, Gracie went from being a child with autism … not very verbal and focused … to a person who can be out in the community, going to [craft]fairs, a few quilting groups … Pat [Charyk] (from Nemasket) takes her here, Pat takes her there, I mean she really, really opens up the world. There would be no Grace as she is today without Cathy and Pat. They just understand her so well.”

Grace needs a lot of support, says Susana, mostly because she has a difficult time concentrating sometimes. The support she is given helps her overcome her anxiety, Susana said, allowing her to work on her sewing, sell some of her pieces at craft fairs, and work part-time at TJ Maxx. She also volunteers at Gifts to Give. She still attends school at ORR and will be entering the school’s first soon-to-be established age 18-22 community-based instruction program.

Susana said Grace was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified), which is a form of autism. Grace seemed on track for her first year, but soon after she started drifting away and regressing into a world of her own.

“When she was diagnosed, I just wouldn’t accept it,” said Susana. “I wasn’t ready for it.” She said both her girls seemed to be doing fine, except they weren’t meeting their verbal milestones on time. “They were both very active,” she said. Ariel was diagnosed in second grade, she added, with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism in the “higher-functioning” range of the spectrum.

Ariel’s passion is for writing and drawing. She graduated from ORR last year after receiving the Principal’s Award. Ariel said she loved her creative writing class, mostly because her teacher was so supportive and encouraging. She was in the honors art class and took art lessons privately outside school. She is taking a year off before starting college, hopefully in graphic design, said mom with a wink.

One of her illustrations was one of the 13 chosen from 60 entries to be put on display at the State House as well as the Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich.

“I’m hoping to enter a contest that one of my support people has been talking about in hopes of getting my work out there because I’d like to earn enough money to get the heck out of here,” said Ariel, sounding like any typical teenager. Her mom chuckled.

Susana pointed to a watercolor painting on the wall of their Marion home of a tree-lined river and sunset.

“She wanted me to throw that away!” said Susana.

“Oh, mom…” Ariel argued that the trees were supposed to be cherry trees but they turned brown instead of pink so she hated that painting.

“I like digital art better because it’s easier to fix what you mess up,” said Ariel. She’s not that into realism, she said, preferring anime and cartoons instead. She joked that her social skills are “sub-par,” with her subtle, pessimistic sense of humor of hers, and Susana laughed, reminding Ariel how lucky she is that her mom has a hearty sense of humor.

Freeman said she has also known Ariel since she was a youngster in Project Grow and developed a friendship with her throughout her years in school up to graduation and continuing to this day.

“She’s another very talented young lady,” said Freeman. “She’s come a long way from when she first began to work with her art. All her time and energy and her focus … it’s very encouraging to me to see that she’s been able to expand her horizon … and expand her career choices. The two girls certainly have a lot to offer.”

By Jean Perry

This being the last week of Autism Awareness Month, I thought I’d conclude things on a relatively lighter note, a ‘different’ note.

My readers know by now that autism wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows for my family, and even this far down in our autism journey, we still sometimes find ourselves deep in the autism trenches fighting off some new antagonist instead of frolicking in the hills like Julie Andrews singing “The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Railroad Crossings.” Sometimes we’re ‘stimming’ on the disco dance floor and other times we are “going off the rails on the crazy train” à la Ozzy Ozbourne (our official anthem of the household).

Ask me now how to describe autism, and I’ll maintain that autism is a journey. Sometimes it’s more like a trip. Not exactly a conventional trip to Disney World or San Francisco or even to the store … It’s more like a trip to Cuba. It’s a place you never thought you’d like to go, but once you get there, if you’re a certain kind of person, you wind up glad you did. And I’m like that. I like Cuba, so naturally I’ve gone back about 20 times.

I remember my first trip to Havana, Cuba back in 2000. It was as if I had left Earth and landed on an entirely different planet. There were myriads of odd, poetic-like and almost ethereal things going on in the streets that even my own warped whimsical imagination could never conjure up. There are things there I can see, do, smell, taste, experience on that island that I can’t find anywhere else.

I guess my life with an autistic child is sort of like Cuba in a way, if you will indulge me in this analogy.

First, though, let me say that in the past when I’d even mention to somebody that I liked traveling to Cuba, the response was usually, “Really? Holy crap! Why?” It’s such a place of mystery, of limited access, forbidden entry, of poverty, oppression, and, yes, revolution – why on earth would one find that appealing? You can’t even get Wi-Fi over there, so why would anyone want to go there?

Aside from the obvious – its natural beauty, tropical climate, musical and artistic culture, the preservation of its colonial history, the rum, tobacco, and the Hemingway factor – the place is simply different than what I am used to … and I like ‘different.’

It feels to me a lot like how having a child with autism does; it requires something else of me. It challenges my dominant paradigms, it tests my patience, and it makes me adapt to my surroundings in ways I never face in my own country. It makes me question whether or not I actually do, in fact, speak the language because, whatever that taxi driver is saying, it definitely isn’t Spanish!

Cuba is abundant in beauty. Abstract beauty, not just the concrete and obvious perceptible beauty of the sky, the sea, the palm trees, the old mint condition ’57 Chevy that is likely held together with rubber bands and paper clips, or the pretty women walking down the Prado. There is an intangible beauty to it all. There’s magic in the scent of Cuban diesel exhaust mixed with the smoke of a Cuban cigar. There is a strange spirit in the breaking of communist bread. It is a beauty that must be sensed, felt, and taken in.

There is wonder in the early-morning spectacle of the avocado-seller shouting “Aguacate!” while pushing his wooden clunker of a cart down the street and stopping at a rope dangling from an apartment, lowered down from the fourth floor above with a plastic bag attached and pesos inside for the seller to take and replace with avocados for an unseen person to pull up again.

She appeared like a miracle to me, the little girl weaving in and out of the shadows cast by the tall colonial building covered in the dust of centuries past and urban decay, riding a bicycle in the street with a chicken calmly roosted on the handlebars.

Watching it all felt so otherworldly, bizarre, and beautiful.

Such is the beauty in autism. If not for my son, I never would have seen the splendor in the way the line of overhead lights in the Ted Williams Tunnel can flow like a rhythmic river of light past your squinted eyes.

Maybe it’s in the more abstract beauty of autism – such as in the distance, the inaccessibility of Cuba – that the beauty is found. That fleeting meeting of the eyes, the time when a hug ensues instead of a pulling away, an almost elusive fairytale-like encounter like the sleeping princess beneath the glass coffin or the dance with the prince before it turns midnight. Maybe the beauty of autism is like the thorns of the rose that make its possession so much more beautiful and coveted.

Sometimes the beauty resides in my son’s inherent ability to be present and pure in the moment, to be transparent and carefree in his joyful perception of rain. Like with Cuba, the beauty lies within his ability to be himself – unmasked, unprotected by the layers that we dress ourselves in to hide who we truly are.

But with autism as with Cuba, despite the beauty, those permanent residents are familiar with the obstacles. There is a common isolation of those with autism from the community and often from close personal relationships outside the family. Similarly, the inhabitants of Cuba wish they could leave, but they are trapped, and getting a visa out of there is difficult at best and usually impossible. There are misconceptions and stereotypes, and the rest of the world might already have formed an opinion without an introduction, without ever visiting.

Regardless, in Cuba, they have these cool three-wheeled trucks that “meep” by, and papier-mâché-like motorcycles with a half shell in the back they call “cocotaxis” that Diego loves, and the ubiquitous “bicitaxi” that will ride you anywhere in the city you want while blaring your favorite reggaeton song for pesos. Diego and I both love going to Cuba. You want ‘different’, you go to Cuba, and that’s where we feel at home.

Looking through the autism lens is like looking around in Cuba – I never really look at “normal” the same as the rest of the world. Autism has a way of tossing “normal” out the window. Autism puts “normal” into a plastic bag lowered down to the street below to happily exchange for some avocados. Autism is a chicken on the handlebars of a little girl’s bike. Just like the famous autistic author, speaker, and animal scientist Temple Grandin always says, autism is just “different, not less.”

Like in Cuba and in this autism mom’s life, we make do with what we have. You get things done using what you have and the way you know how. You see beauty in the unlikely and in both the astonishing and the “mundane.” Maybe you have a pet chicken and you take it for a spin on your bicycle and there’s nothing wrong with that, either.

As this year’s Autism Awareness Month comes to a close, I leave you with one last thought of defiant affection: We’re into avocados, chickens on handlebars, and ‘different’. They can keep their normal. We’re going to Cuba.

By Jean Perry