Words Speak Volumes When Speech is Taught with Love
To the woman who was kind to heart-broken parents: Thank You
Fear and anger were wedged in my throat the day I met the woman who would become our guide through our son’s future. That was six-and-a- half-years ago and over this time the speech therapist whose office we searched for on Google maps, for whom we identified the right building, for whom we found the elevator that would take us up to the first floor, and for whom the doorbell would ring time and time again, has now become someone our family calls a friend. So much so that when other professionals we meet for the first time ask what our speech therapist is called I just say Kika, and then they look at me and I just say “you surely have heard of Kika.” If they still look bewildered, I get out my mobile phone to look at her Facebook profile and say “Kika Hajistathi,” still appalled at the audacity of some people in the professional autistic society to not know Kika as one of the best speech therapists on the island.
I have learned to get over it. After that first encounter, they usually talk to her on the phone and realise what they have been missing out on. And I then have a chat with Kika and we talk about whether this new person who has come into our lives to continue the long chain of professionals who are helping Ektoras is going to fit in. We talk about what part they will take, and the goals they are going to set. We speak of chemistry and on those very few times when I found the chemistry to be off, she made me feel like perhaps it was not just me.
To the woman who taught us the ins and outs of autism: Thank You
See, before Kika we really didn’t know what autism was, why should we? We had no contact with it before and only thought kids with autism rocked violently, didn’t talk, and hit themselves. We didn’t know what a spectrum was, we didn’t know there were categories, we didn’t know about all the work that goes into helping a two-and-a-half-year-old speak properly, cope in society, and learn the most trivial of everyday things we take for granted. We knew nothing, we only knew when we first met Kika that something was not adding up with our son.
Before my son was born, I had all the fairy-tale books ready to read to him. I had this dream where I would speak to him in English and we would be a team against the world, speaking in ways that only we knew. That dream was very much crushed when a child phycologist told me to stop speaking to him in English as I was confusing him. The language around him is Greek so I was told to stick to that. I think I cried myself to sleep that night because that day every time I wanted to speak to him I had to stop myself, re-program my mind, and start talking in a language everyone else knew much better than me.
Then on the hunt for a speech therapist, a friend recommended a really good one and gave me her number. I called a few times, no answer, she called me back, but I missed her call, and then when our phone destinies met, I said “finally, we get to talk.” She giggled and just said a full whole-hearted “yesssss.” I told her how upset I was that I wasn’t able to speak to my son in English and she told me that the language we speak to our children in is the way we bond with our children. By George, or any other name you want to use to express a sheer aha moment, she got it. We booked an appointment a few days later and it was one of the first we ever had with a therapist or any other professional to do with Ektoras. And because this encounter happened so early on, I truly believe that because Kika is the person who opened the door to that flat that day, because of the level of human interaction she has, the humility, the ability she has to put herself in our place, the love she has for her job, and the level of professionalism and drive to do what she does for what she calls ‘her kids’ is what has kept me, for one, fighting all these years… and believe me, there has been a lot of fighting.
To the woman who helped my son find his words: Thank You
“I know you,” she said. At the time this was a thing, people saying my face looked familiar, no idea why but I got it a lot. “Really, perhaps you have seen me around,” I said, brushing it off, too worried and anxious to get into that conversation. “You went to the Grammar school, didn’t you? I remember you.” And just like that, it turned out our paths had crossed before and I calmed down as she took our son into a room for an hour before calling us in to talk. She had a frame with lots of chewing gum wrappers on her desk, she had a photo of a little girl in a frame, she had toys all stacked up, and she had a welcoming and loving environment.
The whole thing lasted for over two hours. She had no idea if we would go to her for therapy but she gave us advice and when we asked if she thought he could be autistic she said perhaps and then introduced us to this spectrum thing. She said lots of people with autism grow up to lead a very normal life. Remember, we still thought autism was people hitting themselves and rocking back and forth, we still couldn’t grasp the idea of what normality would look like for us in the future. For us then it was like all our friends’ kids were colouring inside the colourless horse while ours was colouring the sky, the walls, and the ground under the feet of the Greeks hiding inside the horse. For us now the other kids see a horse while ours sees the whole of Troy.
To the woman who never gives up: Thank You
She had no idea if she would ever see us again but she saw the fear we had bubbling up inside and the anger I had because no one believed me when I told them something was wrong. She saw it that day, as she sees it now whenever I tell her something happened and we spend hours on the phone working out what we will do and she gives me advice on how I should handle the situation. She always tells me she will work it into the sessions, she caters to Ektoras’ needs.
Time came to pay and she gave us a discount just because she remembered me from school — I still have no recollection of her at school but I am older so I get away with it somehow.
She doesn’t do what she does for the money. Now she is building a team of speech therapists under the name Speech Bee K.H to help children and parents and she is not doing it for the money. She is doing it because she is just that good at what she does that she has no time to take on more kids. Because she doesn’t want to let anyone down, she is bringing other very good therapists into her space so parents who would usually only choose her can still have that trust because they trust that Kika has their children’s best interest at heart — oh, and she does, every single day she does.
I will give a shout-out to her mum here if she is reading. Her mum was also involved in education and when she held my baby daughter in her arms, I saw that same love for children that Kika has, that same caring. The apple really hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
To the woman who was there for me for much more than autism: Thank You
But on a very personal note, Ektoras aside and everything we have been through with autism, Kika has become a close part of our family. She comes to every one of Ektoras birthday parties. She searched for hours the first time to find him a gift just right for him.
When I had my miscarriages, I just happened to tell her. I wasn’t planning to, I had to cancel one of our sessions and she called me. I broke down in tears and she shared her story about having children with me. And when I finally got pregnant and was as sure as I could be that I would not lose it, I told her. I went up close, grabbed her hands, and told her and she gave me a massive bear hug. They say women are jealous of other women, that we can’t get along, it is kind of true, I don’t get along with most women, but most women are not like Kika.
To the woman who loves our son unconditionally: Thank You
I am going over 1,000 words here, way over my limit. I could go over 10,000 and still, my words would never do Kika justice. She helped our son find his words. He could say many words when he first went to see her but she helped him put them on strings so he could pull in all the other marvelous things that have come into his life.
She has gotten on the floor with him and played with him, she has made us get on the floor, and taught us how to play with him so he could lead us into the kind of play that would open himself up to really understanding how to deal with certain circumstances. She has brought her daughter into the lesson as a way of helping Ektoras see how other children may react to his stubborn ways, she has calmed him down, and she has found the way to ask him things and get answers. She has become his guide as well as ours on this journey through autism, and without realising it, she is the one person this mother will always trust when it comes to following advice on which path to take next when it comes to her son.
Ektoras is the best part of me and without Kika I doubt whether the world would have ever been able to see the best of Ektoras — to the woman who brought the best out of Ektoras, and every other child out there who has been so lucky as to have had you as a speech therapist, we Thank YOU.
