"Look at me!"
„Pogledaj me!“
That phrase turned me into an eye-contact coach. I'm the mother of Ivan; he's 15 years old. Ivan has autism, he doesn't speak, and he communicates through an iPad, where his whole universe of words exists in images.
Ta rečenica me je pretvorila u trenera pogleda. Ja sam Ivanova mama, koji ima 15 godina. Ivan ima autizam, ne priča, i komunicira preko jednog Ajpoda na kome je ceo njegov svet reči u slikama.
He was diagnosed when he was two and a half. I still remember that day painfully. My husband and I felt really lost; we didn't know where to begin. There was no internet, you couldn't Google information, so we made those first steps out of sheer intuition.
Saznali smo njegovu dijagnozu kada je imao dve i po godine. Još uvek se prisećam tog trenutka sa mnogo boli. Moj muž i ja smo se osećali veoma izgubljeno. Nismo znali odakle da počnemo. Nije bilo interneta kao danas, nismo mogli da izguglamo informaciju, tako da su ti prvi koraci bili čista intuicija.
Ivan would not maintain eye contact, he had lost the words that he did know, and he didn't respond to his name or to anything we asked him, as if words were noise. The only way I could know what was going on with him, what he felt, was looking him in the eye. But that bridge was broken.
Ivan nije mogao da održi pogled, zaboravio je reči koje je govorio, nije se odazivao na svoje ime niti na bilo šta što bismo mu tražili, kao da su reči bile samo buka. Jedini način koji je postojao da saznam šta mu se dešava, da saznam šta oseća, bio je da ga gledam u oči. Ali, taj most je bio srušen.
How could I teach him about life? When I did things he liked, he would look at me, and we were connected. So I dedicated myself to working with him on those things, so we would have more and more eye-contact moments. We would spend hours and hours playing tag with his older sister, Alexia, and when we said: "I caught you!" he would look around for us, and at that moment, I could feel he was alive.
Kako pokazati Ivanu život? Kada sam radila stvari koje se njemu sviđaju, tada bi me gledao i bili smo povezani. Tako sam se posvetila da ga pratim u tim stvarima, i svaki put je bilo sve više i više trenutaka da smo se gledali. Provodili bismo sate i sate igrajući se jurki sa njegovom starijom sestrom, Aleksijom, i kada bismo rekli: „Ah, uhvaćen si!“ tražio nas je pogledom, a ja sam tada, u tom trenutku, osećala da je živ.
We also hold a record for hours spent in a swimming pool. Ivan always had a passion for water. I remember when he was two and a half, on a rainy winter day, I was taking him to an indoor pool, because even on rainy days we'd go swimming. We were on the highway, and I took the wrong exit. He burst into tears and cried inconsolably, nonstop, until I turned back. Only then did he calm down.
Takođe, držimo rekord u satima provedenim u bazenu. Ivan je uvek imao veliku strast prema vodi. Sećam se da sam ga, kada je imao dve i po godine, jednog kišnog zimskog dana vodila do zatvorenog bazena, jer čak ni tih dana nismo prestajali da idemo. Vozili smo se autoputem i pogrešila sam izlaz. I tada je neutešno počeo da plače, bez prestanka, sve dok se nisam vratila na put i onda se ubrzo smirio.
How was it possible that a two and a half year old didn't respond to his own name, yet in the middle of the rain and fog, where I couldn't see anything, he knew the exact route? That's when I realized that Ivan had an exceptional visual memory, and that that would be my way in.
Kako je moguće da se sa dve i po godine nije odazivao na svoje ime, ali da je usred te kiše i magle, kroz koju nisam uspevala ništa da vidim, bio sposoban da savršeno prepozna put? Tada sam shvatila da Ivan ima izvanredno vizuelno pamćenje i da će to biti moja ulazna vrata.
So I started taking pictures of everything, and teaching him what life was like, showing it to him, picture by picture. Even now, it's the way Ivan communicates what he wants, what he needs and also what he feels.
Tako da sam počela da vadim slike svega i da ga tako učim životu, pokazujući mu ih, sliku po sliku. I dan-danas to je još uvek način na koji nam Ivan govori šta želi, šta mu je potrebno, kao i šta oseća.
But it wasn't just Ivan's eye contact that mattered. Everyone else's did, too. How could I make people see not only his autism, but see him the person and everything he can give; everything he can do; the things he likes and doesn't like, just like any one of us? But for that, I also had to give of myself. I had to have the strength to let him go, which was extremely difficult.
Ali, nije bilo potrebno tražiti samo Ivanov pogled. Takođe je bio potreban i pogled drugih. Kako uspeti da ne vide samo njegov autizam, već da vide njega i sve što on može da pruži? Sve što on može da uradi, stvari koje mu se sviđaju, a koje ne, kao i svakome od nas. Ali za to, trebalo je da i ja uradim svoj deo. Morala sam da imam hrabrosti da ga pustim. A to mi je bilo mnogo teško.
Ivan was 11 years old, and he went for treatment in a neighborhood near our house. One afternoon, while I was waiting for him, I went into a greengrocer, a typical neighborhood store with a little bit of everything. While doing the shopping, I started talking to Jose, the owner. I told him about Ivan, that he had autism, and that I wanted him to learn to walk down the street by himself, without anyone holding his hand.
Ivan je imao 11 godina, i bio je na svom tretmanu veoma blizu kuće, u drugom kraju. I jedno popodne, dok sam ubijala vreme čekajući ga, ušla sam u piljaru, u tipičnu piljaru u kraju koja ima pomalo od svega. I dok sam kupovala, počela sam da pričam sa Hoseom, gazdom. Ispričala sam mu za Ivana, da ima autizam i da bih volela kada bi on naučio da sam hoda ulicom, a da ga niko ne drži za ruku.
So I decided to ask Jose if Thursdays around 2pm, Ivan could come and help him arrange the water bottles on the shelves, because he loved to organize things. And as a reward, he could buy some chocolate cookies, which were his favorite. He said "yes" right away. So that's how it went for a year: Ivan would go to Jose's greengrocer, help him arrange the shelves of water bottles with the labels perfectly lined up on the same side, and he would leave happy with his chocolate cookies.
I ohrabrila sam se da ga upitam da li bi četvrtkom popodne Ivan mogao da dolazi i pomaže mu da slaže police sa flašama vode pošto je njega oduševljavalo slaganje, a kao nagradu da dobije čokoladne kolačiće, njegove omiljene. Odmah mi je rekao da može. I tako je godinu dana Ivan odlazio u Hoseovu piljaru, pomagao mu je da slaže police sa flašama vode, čije etikete bi savršeno poravnao milimetarski sa svih strana. I odlazio bi srećan sa svojim kolačićima od čokolade.
Jose is not an expert in autism. There is no need to be an expert nor do anything heroic to include someone. We just need to be there --
Hose nije ekspert što se tiče autizma. Nije potrebno biti ekspert ni u čemu, niti postići nikakvo dostignuće da biste uključili nekog. Jednostavno treba da -
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
(Applause ends)
Really, no heroic deed -- we simply need to be close. And if we are afraid of something or we don't understand something, we need to ask.
Tako je, nikakvo herojsko dostignuće. Jednostavno treba da budemo blizu. I ako nas nešto plaši ili ako ne razumemo, pitajmo;
Let's be curious but never indifferent. Let's have the courage to look each other in the eye, because by looking, we can open a whole world to someone else.
budimo radoznali, ali nikada ravnodušni. Imajmo hrabrost da pogledamo u oči, jer sa našim pogledom možemo nekom otvoriti čitav svet.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
(Cheers)
(Ovacije)