The Waterslide

Or, Why it's worth talking about the hard stuff

Nov 15, 2024

BTW, make sure you read all the way to the end, because I’ve been so excited to share something with you for a long time 🎉

This whole thing started at a birthday party last year. The kids were all invited to the local YMCA for swimming and cake and presents, and once Cannon laid eyes on the two-story tall pool slide, it was over. He was hooked. He went up and down that slide probably 50 times—and I would say he was mostly following the rules, but he for sure got whistled at by the teenage lifeguards at least a few times. Par for the course. A few whistles don’t hurt my parenting feelings like they used to. We course correct and keep going.

We were not members of the YMCA, so Cannon tempered his love for the slide with YouTube videos and drawings. We didn’t actually go back to visit the pool slide until we were invited to another birthday party there a few months ago. Cannon was in the middle of a pretty rough patch with his behaviors, and I hadn’t been brave enough to attempt any public outings in several weeks. But this was a pool, and Cannon loves pools. And my friend, Stephanie, totally unconcerned about what may or may not happen with his behavior, insisted I bring him. “I loved watching him have so much fun last year, Katie! Please feel free to bring him. We can help with the other kids if Cannon needs you!”

So there we were at the pool slide again. And surprising no one more than me, his own mother, Cannon behaved perfectly. He waited in line when he needed to wait in line. He stayed on his bottom the whole way down (except one time, but no one caught it other than his sister so it doesn’t count since we didn’t get a lifeguard whistle) and he practiced his “slow feet” every time he got out of the pool to get back in line for the slide. We had the best hour together, an hour my heart really needed exactly in that moment, as so many days had been so challenging and sad leading up to it.

I thought we would go home and be just fine waiting another year for the next birthday party at the pool slide, filling in the gap with more videos and more drawings. But Cannon was not ready to wait another year. Every day for the next week, he begged and begged to go to “special pool slide.” When you have a child with limited communication abilities, it’s not often you know exactly what they want or exactly what you can do to make them happy. But this time, his wants couldn’t be more clear.

I bought a family membership at the YMCA solely so I could take Cannon to the pool slide on weeknights between 6:30-8:00pm when it was open.

For exactly one visit, this plan worked perfectly.

And on our second visit as official members of the YMCA here only for the pool slide, we walked into the natatorium at 6:31pm and there it was, the worst thing that could possibly happen to a mom and her pool slide obsessed son with autism: a rope across the stairs to the pool.

I need you to understand the horror of this moment. We had just finished in-home therapy, where I had told him for the entirety of the two hours that if he finished his hard work, we could go to the slide. And when Cannon has his mind on something, he cannot simply pivot. That loop is open and he is going to yell and cry and behave very badly if he cannot get what he needs to close it. So when we both saw our access to the one thing he had his heart set on denied, I could only close my eyes to brace for impact.

Cannon immediately started yelling, “Pool slide! I want special pool slide!”

“Hang on buddy,” I told him, “let mommy ask when it’s going to open. Maybe they just haven’t turned it on yet?” We held hands and walked over to the 15-year-old lifeguard, and I calmly–yet firmly and expectantly–asked about the slide. “The website says it’s open tonight, 6:30-8:30pm. I checked right before we left the house. Are you turning it on soon?”

“I’m sorry, we are short-staffed tonight, so we can’t turn the slide on.”

I’m not sure this poor teenager had ever seen a look like the one I gave him, especially one from a middle-aged mother.

“But, the website says it would be open,” I repeated, as if that could solve the staffing problem. “And my son,” the one who was pulling my arm toward the roped off stairs, “was really, really looking forward to going on the slide.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he offered sheepishly. “We can turn the fountain on for him though!”

Not gonna cut it, bro, I thought, but didn’t say.

“Well,” I looked around desperately searching for another option, even though I already knew there wasn’t one, “I guess I’ll try to keep him happy in the pool,” I said and walked away coldly. But I knew before we walked down the four steps into the heavily (very heavily) chlorinated water, that Cannon was not going to calm down without the pool slide.

I kind of want to disappear in these moments, when I’ve braved the public spaces with faith that there would be no head-hitting, no screaming, no scene to be made. And then, circumstances out of my control induce all three of those things. We sat together on the steps of the pool for fifteen minutes, him screaming the entire time, “Special pool slide! I want special pool slide,” and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

To make matters worse, I could see the lifeguard station from where I was sitting, and three teenagers were inside the station laughing, looking at their phones, very much not lifeguarding. All of the kids these days thoughts welled up in my brain until I could hold them in no more. (I’m building this up to sound more angry and intimidating than I actually ever was. Honestly, I thought I was pretty kind for how rattled Cannon and I both were. But for the sake of the story let’s go with the image of tough Katie, I kinda like that one).

Still holding Cannon’s hand, we got out of the pool and walked over to the station. “Hi, um, we were here for the waterslide, and as you can very clearly hear, my little guy is not happy that it’s not on like the website said it would be, but anyway, I’m told you are understaffed tonight and that’s why you can’t turn it on? Well, it looks like there are enough of you in here for one of you to come and sit at the top of the slide?”

“Well, you see, um…” and they proceeded to give me some teenage explanation about one of them only being in training and one of them was on their break and one of them had to stay by the phone and yada yada yada, none of it was good enough for me.

“Well my son has severe autism, so this is remarkably hard for him,” I told them, trying to hold back tears, even though I never cry saying that out loud anymore. Until of course, I do.

They stared back at me, with eyes somewhere between fear of “what is this lady gonna do?” and compassion for the little boy crying next to me, but they didn’t speak. I couldn’t think of anything else helpful to say, but I still wanted to assert my frustration to these carefree teenagers, so before turning and walking off I added: “Maybe next time someone can update the website when you’re short staffed!”

I got Cannon to calm down slightly with the promise that we would go get a vanilla ice cream cone at McDonald’s instead. He was weepy and still yelling, but he did move his body in the right direction for me. As I was toweling off a bit, a different lifeguard, another teenager, approached us and said, “Ma’am? We can turn the slide on for you.”

Did you just hear the hallelujah chorus? Because I did.

“You can?! Oh my gosh, thank you so much!” I told him, with more enthusiasm than he was ready for. “You’re really saving our whole night here!”

“It’s no problem,” he responded calmly. “My brother has autism, so I understand.”

God bless this sweet young man.

Five minutes later, the slide was open. Cannon and I went up and down, and up and down, and up and down again and again and again, glee jumping out of every pore in his body. I made sure to thank each and every teenage lifeguard there, multiple times, and almost every one of them responded with, “It’s no problem, we understand.” Autism was not a boogeyman to them. They all seemed to truly understand that no one chooses disability, and everyone deserves all the dignity we can possibly give them.

I don’t throw around the statement, “He has autism” for pity. And I don’t do it expecting special favors like we were granted on this night. It was a grace that these young kids were able to pivot and get special permission to turn the slide on; that doesn’t always happen. We’ve had to leave plenty of places yelling and upset because the special circumstances can’t happen.

But sometimes, I do say “He has autism,” so people understand what they are seeing—when the normal disappointment of not being able to ride a slide is actually a meltdown so fierce and dangerous to himself, it’s hard not to watch and wonder. But on this day, when I told these young boys and girls what they were seeing, they didn’t scoff, or look shaken up, or shrug their shoulders. They nodded, and they did what they could. Whether they knew from their own family experience the tension of being in a public space and having a disability, or they learned in training for their job, the point is they did not expect Cannon to control something he could not control. They clearly had conversations about disability before. They were young and myopic like all teenagers are. But they knew they could do something for my son, and they did.

I don’t know friends, but I think if we keep talking about the hard stuff, maybe the kids are going to be alright.

Two years ago, an editor reached out to me about writing a children’s book about disability, and y’all, I told her no. I didn’t think I had anything to add to the conversation. But then over lunch with two of my best friends, I could not stop gushing about Cannon’s special needs baseball team, and how magical that hour of being together—kids with disabilities and typical kiddos–really was for all of us. And like good friends do (looking at you, Em and Aubree), they pointed out the obvious: that’s your children’s book, Katie.

And The Very Best Baseball Game was born.

I’ve spent much of the last eight years writing about disability for my own therapy, and writing to encourage other parents on a similar road. But this book, friends, this one is for everyone. It’s for you to read to your typical children to spark conversations about disability. It’s for teachers to read to their classrooms. It’s for ministry leaders to equip their church for all families to be able to come to service, no matter how much noise they bring. It’s for anyone who takes seriously that the body of Christ works best when we are working together.

I’ve never said this about my own work before, but I think this might be my favorite story I’ve ever written. It just means the most. I still cry when I get to the last page.

Because this story, the bigger one of raising a child with a disability as a single mom, is one God has to continue to give me the courage to live in every day. And when I see others loving Cannon, it’s the evidence that God is doing exactly that.

The Very Best Baseball Game comes out March 4, 2025. I would be so, so humbled if you would preorder the book, friends. You’ll not only get it in your mailbox right on launch day, but—for reasons I won’t bore you with here—preorders are such an important measure for authors. I want everyone to care about people with disabilities, and I need your help to get these conversations going everywhere we can.

This book is one way I want to do my part to create a world full of people who welcome disability into their spaces, to start conversations about what gifts we’ve been given that can be lent to others, and to see that there are teenagers everywhere who will go out of their way to turn the pool slide on for the little boy (and the mama!) who needs it.

You’ll be hearing lots more from me in the coming months about this message, but in the meantime, do let me know if you preorder, so I can give you a proper thank you. It genuinely means more than I can ever tell you 💙

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