If our times call for a new anthem, this unlikely composer has it.

My Jeff sings and sings. In perfect pitch. So genuine. Moving. He’s crooning his “Coronavirus” special today, begun after our daily reading of that lifesaving Flipsnack social story from the Illinois Autism Society that’s begun our days lately. Like a flowerbud you’d look at and think was a weed until you looked closer to see its beauty, he sprouts so many timely learnings.

Like his tune snippets – sing-songs where he picks the latest words floating in the air, and mashes them anew. “Dance party,” to the tune of “Edelweiss.” Post-breakfast, it later morphed to “it’s your favorite oatmeal.” Then “go in the sinker” which I think relates to soaking breakfast dishes. Then the Happy Birthday tune sung to “I love Jeffy I do, I love Jeff-er-y Q,” a classic now oft-repeated to promote a full 20-second hand washing. It’s as if he grabbed whatever word was left on the grocery shelf and whipped it into a creation of wonder.

Aren’t we all singing a new tune these days.

Day 5, a Friday, had its moments. The hubby’s stomach bug lingered, and while he emerged from the bedroom a few more times, his MO was to stay up for 30 min, then back to bed. Consequently yet again I got about 15 minutes of productive work time. I still flabbergast at how the simple ADLs of the boys’ daily routine consume an hour or more – showers, lunch, cleanup. The yoga I need for increasingly achy joints seems a laughable goal, unless I consider incorporate cardio-enhanced jogs up the basement stairs to chase young men out of the refrigerator in the middle of a Downward Dog – which frankly I just might do. I haven’t slept a full normal block all week. After each post-prandial cleanup, the Mommy wear and tear shows and I usually need to sit down and catch my breath, until inane Facebook posts make me angry and I have to rejoin the real world.

Yet by 5 pm on this day – having done a 2.4 mi walk, a virtual dance party which Will is really loving, and a quick trip to the Dunkin Donuts drive-through to celebrate Free Donut Friday – I had hope the boys had better selves. I needed them to sit while I scrubbed the floor in between making fresh scallops and roasted brussels sprouts. Surprisingly they delivered, sitting bathed in sunlight in our three-season room while I worked in the kitchen next door.

By 8 pm after Dad came and went again, I needed the boys to behave because I was spent and not in the mood to chase them out of misbehavior-land which for Will lately is either flooding bathroom counters then placing his electronics or books in it – or blaring Raffi tunes from his iPad while I attempt to listen to something else. Thankfully Will put down his iPad in the living room and joined us in a La-Z-Boy chair, actually watching TV for almost 10 minutes quietly and calmly.

Suddenly Jeff’s sing-song united us like a mantra. Truthfully I can’t remember the words he invented right then. As if words matter in times like these. In a common family room on a pinprick of the earth, we were a trio of misfits – two young men whose neurology precluded normal language, and a mother of questionable finite impact on the earth, who never finished the Great American Novel, who struggles – although like Arwen, I hear the breath of “there is still hope.”

We sat blessed with health and abundance and rugged purpose, breathing deeply ahead of a rest before a day of forecast strong winds and sunshine. Not merely singers, we ourselves were the song.