I am amazed that 15 years have flown by since I learned about Asperger’s Syndrome. The doctor I was seeing at the time told me about Asperger’s and that I was on the autism spectrum. Although my official diagnosis came a couple of months later, it was the moment when I finally discovered my authenic self. The reality that I was autistic. This happened on April 11, 2002.
In 2007 on this day, my favorite writer Kurt Vonnegut died. I read many of his books and enjoyed them. He wrote a lot of material that have been published after he died. I managed to collect those too.
Many years ago, I met my favorite writer after he made a speech at a writer’s festival in Boston. This was in October 1995. I shook his hand and told him about the time I was vacationing with my parents in December 1985 in Barbados. We were there for my cousin’s wedding that Christmas. I was reading Vonnegut’s book called Deadeye Dick. One morning, I woke up and saw my Daddy reading the book. Daddy remarked that this writer seemed to be someone in my age group. I didn’t have to heart to tell Daddy that Kurt Vonnegut was 2 years older than him. Daddy’s date of birth was November 13, 1924, and Kurt’s date of birth was November 11, 1922.
Kurt smiled when I told him that story. A couple of years after Kurt Vonnegut died, I told Daddy about my meeting with Kurt and the fact that Kurt was older than him. Daddy hardly reacted over what I told him. At that point of his life, he didn’t seem to care. Daddy passed was on April 6, 2015, at the age of 90.
Btw, my new book, The Outside In View of Uncommon Bostonian: What An Autistic Black Woman Sees, is dedicated to Kurt Vonngut.
