Erica Peaslee wants to thank her Pembroke neighbors for making her son’s graduation party last Friday night special.
She’s grateful for the support, received after Peaslee had announced on Facebook that Michael, who will attend Pembroke Academy this fall, was going to get what he wanted: a fireworks display for graduating from middle school.
Peaslee wanted to be considerate. She wanted neighbors to know her plan. She didn’t want to ambush anyone with the sudden staccato popping of firecrackers, or the high-pitched whistling of rockets.
It’s an annual issue, a rite of summer, ready to resurface on July 4, in less than two weeks. Fireworks are loud and dangerous. They make some people nervous, and this in itself made Peaslee nervous. That’s why she included in her post that her younger son, Jacob, is autistic.
She empathized with those who have sensitive ears and systems.
“Yes I understand dogs may feel anxious,” Erica wrote, “Yes I understand our veterans and even better I personally understand having a special needs child who struggles with loud noises.”
Soon, she discovered that people in her town were more fun than fuddy-duddy.
“The outpouring of love warmed my heart,” she said this week. “I expected a bunch of backlash. I had to share with people and did not want anyone caught off guard. I love that no one complained.”
Erica wanted this to be special. She wanted Michael, who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder, to know that she and her husband, Steve, were proud of him.
And while Michael asked for a fireworks display, Erica knew the effect that that level of noise sometimes has, on seniors, veterans, children, even pets. That lesson came from her youngest, 12-year-old Jacob.
Anything unexpected and packing a punch, like a motorcycle’s roar, or a pistol shooting, or, yes, fireworks, might set Jacob off.
“Having a special needs kid opens your eyes to what challenges other have,” Erica said. “Being a special needs mom changes how you think as a person. We are pretty good at controlling his environment.”
It’s a challenging environment that so many parents can relate to. The one that stretches parents thin, pulls them in different directions like a wishbone.
In this case, with autism and anxiety firmly entrenched in the household dynamics, combining with Erica’s role as a nursing assistant at Havenwood Heritage Heights retirement community, and Steve’s job as a truck driver, and with Covid leaving educators confused about the right path moving forward, and with parents doubling as teachers while working fulltime elsewhere, well, you know the score.
It can be exhausting.
“Raising these two can be a struggle,” Erica told me. “But I don’t know anything different. It’s what I do for a job, and it’s what I do at home.”
She’s been working in the medical field all her life. She worried about bringing COVID home to her family, perhaps catching it from a senior at Havenwood.
Jacob was her biggest concern. He has asthma, high blood pressure, kidney problems.
“My employer was receptive that I had a high-risk kid,” Erica said. “He can not identify what’s wrong when he’s sick.”
Meanwhile, Michael, who’s 13, evolved into a perfectionist, growing upset if he failed to accomplish what he had set out to do. His passion was unmatched.
“He struggles every time whenever he’s not perfect,” Erica said.
He loves science and is a sponge when it comes to history. He knows, for example, that slavery was at the heart of the Civil War. He knows what the Nazis did. He attended an archaeology camp in North Carolina and worked on a live site, uncovering a Spanish fort from the 19th century. He watches educational programming and likes sharing his knowledge with friends.
“It does not sound like a 13-year-old, does it?” Erica said.
“I am a big history person, very, very big on history,” Michael told me. “And archaeology is investigating history and being able to identify things in an area.”
Erica and Steve worked different shifts, making it easier to supervise and help their kids when needed. As Erica noted, “Our lives did not have to change substantially like a lot of people’s did.”
The irony here is that COVID-induced remote learning actually benefited the two boys. For Jacob, stimulus overload, created in the school’s hallways and classrooms, was eliminated, thanks to working from home.
And like his younger brother, Michael flourished away from the classroom, at home, with no spotlight of any kind, safe to ask questions via email, without fear of embarrassing himself.
“His anxiety stems from not wanting to look stupid by asking stupid questions,” Erica said. “It’s very isolating for him. He did not want to ask, and it made it a learning hazard because he did not want to ask what he did not know.”
Michael actually felt bad for his teachers, saying, “It was kind of hard with some of them not knowing what to do because they had never done it before.”
Erica says Michael’s grades at Three Rivers School were terrific. She also said COVID snatched part of the fun.
“It was a rough year and 8th grade did not end the way it should have,” Erica said. “No trip, no formal dance, so I told (Michael) he did awesome and we were proud and I said let’s have us a party.”
She thought about a cake, candles, a few friends. Something simple. Then she asked Michael what he wanted.
“Let’s end the school year with a bang,” Michael told his mother.
He wanted fireworks. First, though, the neighbors. Would they be okay with this? Would they understand? She turned to Facebook.
“Just want to give a heads up to my N. Pembroke Rd neighbors, we will be having a celebration tonight for our son who just finished 8th grade. There will be fireworks involved. Please understand this young man had a tough year and we are celebrating him and his accomplishments the way he asked.”
One-hundred-and-twenty-six likes and 25 comments later, Erica got a larger, clearer picture of the people on or near her street.
“Um, can we please watch them?” a neighbor responded on Facebook. “Bring them on!! Congratulations, to your son!!! Fireworks welcomed by our family!”
People unexpectedly dropped by. They drove to the house and parked, waiting for 5-inch mortars, 72 firecrackers, missiles, cakes, sparklers, bang snaps, smoke grenades.
“It turned out to be a bigger party than I expected,” Erica said. “It turned out to be fireworks and dancing, and he had a great time.”
Jacob wore those hearing-protective headphones common at shooting ranges.
His brother wore a smile.
“What is the best way to say this? It made me feel happy,” Michael said. “I really don’t have any other way to describe it.”