28 Feb A Contrarian family indulgence

Some of you know my grandchildren include Josh and Jacob Barss Donham, identical twins with Down Syndrome, who also fall somewhere along the Asperger’s spectrum. These two are apples of my eye, and I treasure the time I get to spend with them.

Saturday was a special night for Josh, as his father, Silas Barss Donham, explained in a Facebook post:

Most anyone who knows Josh knows his affection for the opening tune of Spring, by Vivaldi. He loves exploring the demo mode on his keyboards, and that was a tune he always rooted out and played on any device that had it. One early morning about a year ago, I found a live performance video on YouTube, and put it on for pre-breakfast entertainment while I mixed up the waffle batter.

Later his sister learned to play it on the piano, and between watching her fingers and his keen ear, he taught himself to play it, through many, many hours of practice. Something about figuring out instrumental music appeals to his autistic focus, and nothing comes close to “Spring ‘Valdi.” All his schoolmates and teachers have learned about Vivaldi because he hums or plays it. So. Much.

You can imagine how delighted I was to discover that Symphony Nova Scotia would be putting on a performance of “The Four Seasons” this year. The performance was at a large downtown church in Halifax and we arrived early enough to find two front row, aisle seats still vacant, the musicians tuning up right in front of us. (It’s a while since I’ve been to a classical music concert and as you can see from the concert, I’m afraid the two of us may have out-dressed the musicians, let alone our fellow audience members. But I don’t mind, as it helped Josh to understand this was a special evening.)

We had a bit of a wait, and my boy, who is normally incapable of focusing or behaving after supper time, sat quietly, pointing out various things in the room and cracking little jokes. The first act featured Pachelbel’s “Canon” and a few other accessible pieces that were unfamiliar to Josh. He sat, quietly attentive, through them all.

During the intermission we walked around the church and received numerous adoring glances. We had decided not to tell Josh it was a Vivaldi concert, partly for a surprise, and partly so his cross-grained nature wouldn’t diminish his enjoyment.

So when the second act began, and Josh’s favourite piece of music burst out in front of us, he had no idea it was coming.

He gave me a glance of pure delight, then leaned forward, grabbed the pew in front of us, and started bouncing up and down, shaking his smiling head back and forth, and rubbing his legs. He kept it up nonstop until his favourite piece was all done. Through the rest of The Four Seasons, he went back to quiet attentiveness, gradually snuggling up to me and getting sleepier, but never taking his focus off the performance.

After the concert was done one of the violists came up to tell us how adorable we were, and how much pleasure it gave him to play for us. It gave me a chance to try to blurt out a little about how much the evening meant to us, but words cannot express how proud I was of my funny little boy. 

Spring isn’t that far off. May as well give it a listen:

[Video link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/mFWQgxXM_b8 ]