When I turned 18, I had my first legal drink–a strawberry daiquiri–at Windows on the World, the bar/restaurant that was located on the top floor of the World Trade Center.
When my oldest son, Danny, turns 18 next week, we will take a train from Jerusalem to Haifa, and then we will ride the Carmelit subway for a good part of the day.
Danny loves trains and has ever since he was diagnosed with autism when he was 3. In addition to marking his birthday with a cake in the evening, his father and I will become his legal guardians that day. When he was born, there was no World Autism Awareness Day, but it’s hard not to see the irony in the fact that April 2 is just six days before his birthday.
We moved back to Israel about a year after the diagnosis because Danny’s father is Israeli and wanted to head back home. Because of his autism, Danny won’t be drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, like most 18-year-olds here, but will stay in a school he loves, where he is learning and progressing. When he finishes up there, at the age of 21, he may or may not be high-functioning enough to serve in one of the IDF special-needs units.
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