“Charlie, can you pass me the aluminum foil?” I ask while placing some leftover rice, beans, and chicken, in a bowl.

“Where?” he asks without searching.

“On the rack, in the hall, next to the kitchen.”

“Oh.”

After Charlie made his way to the hall, he stands in front of the racks and stares at the products for a minute or two. Then he moves away, and looks at me dumbfoundedly, and asks again, “Where?” As I look for the aluminum foil with him, I see it in front of all the other products on the third rack.

“Charlie, the aluminum foil is right in front of you.”

Charlie then looks at all the products in front of him and sees the aluminum foil, but asks me one more time, “Where?”

I finally walk up to the rack and physically point to and touch the aluminum foil package.

“Oh oh oh,” Charlie chuckles nervously, “I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it.”

Every day is the same routine with Uncle Charlie. He is a 50-year-old bald headed Puerto Rican man living in New York City. He lives with my parents, sister, and me. His daily outfit consists of a t-shirt, jeans, white socks, and comfortable slippers to walk around the house.

I wake up every morning to the sound of his voice praying for God’s guidance for himself and for everyone around him. “Seenorrr, ayudaaaa Antoniooo, Natashaaa, Carolynnn, Nancyyy, Nicholasss, Vincentteee y yooo. Ayyuudaamee senorr. Graciass Seenorrr, Gracias Seenorrr, Gracias Seenorrr…” The simple translation for his prayer is, “Lord, help Anthony, Natasha, Carolyn, Nancy, Nicholas, Vincent, and me. Help me God. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord, thank you Lord.” His prayers remain the same, and I can tell they always come from his heart.

After Charlie is finished with his morning prayer, he picks up his bible and reads from Psalm 91: “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust…’” Psalm 91 is a prayer for God’s protection and strength. It happens to be my uncle’s favorite Psalm.

After his morning devotional, Charlie puts on his boots and coat. Once fully dressed, he searches for the dog’s leash. The leash is always found on the brown wooden desk next to the basement doorway. The dog, Babe Ruth, sees that Uncle Charlie is reaching for his leash and begins to jump enthusiastically. Sometimes Charlie reacts with a grunt, “Ba-Ru, stop it man. Relax!” Then he turns to me and says, “This dog, man.” I giggle at his reaction, but if the dog wants to go, then the dog should go. After half an hour, Charlie and Babe Ruth are back from their walk and immediately Charlie goes downstairs to place his coat and boots on the couch. He slips into his sandals, walks back upstairs, washes his hands, and then sits in his wooden chair in the living room. There are times when he falls asleep right where he is with the television tuned to the BET channel and his glasses still resting on his face.

As I leave for school or work, I walk out of my room and pass by the kitchen. Dishes explode out of the sink and cover the tops of the counters. To my left and right, I see bills, magazines, and receipts all over the wooden tables and stone countertop near the dining area. The floor needs to be swept and mopped, yet Charlie is still sitting in his wooden chair instead of doing the work that is expected of him.

In an ordinary person’s mind, one would think Charlie is lazy, but it’s really much more than that. Charlie was born with a neurodevelopmental disorder which can cause autism symptoms. Some of his nerves cannot respond to the brain, resulting in a slower response time than the average person. When Charlie was a boy, his parents and his three brothers and sisters took care of him. All his life he was able to sit back and relax. He lived by eating, sleeping, and pooping, but Charlie had a tough side to him, too. He was bullied at school –called names and teased- but Charlie never liked to be called a “retard.” Whenever he heard someone call him that, Charlie immediately grabbed the person’s shirt, lifted him up just by a little, and demanded that he take it back. Charlie was not a retard.

It’s amazing how a person with autism can react so strongly. There’s so many things that we don’t know about autistic people and what they go through. One autistic man named Larry Bissonnette, said, “Being autistic is like having a body that doesn’t work.” I heard about Larry through a documentary called Wrenches and Jabberers directed by Gerardine Wurzburg, on individuals who suffer from autism and explain what they go through. Autistic people want to express so much through speech but cannot because their bodies aren’t functioning the way they should.

Now Charlie is in his 50s and in order to move him out of his comfort zone, my family and I work together to involve everyone in cleaning the house. Unsurprisingly, Charlie is not familiar with deep cleaning, which is my mother’s third language. For instance, I need to make sure he cleans the dishes or the bathroom correctly. Often when I check the dishes that Charlie claims to be clean, the forks have food remains still on them, and dinner plates and bowls are still greasy. Grease is the worst enemy of dishes, so, I place the dirty dishes back into the sink and I clean them myself.

Whenever Charlie cleans the bathroom, he needs to be reminded to use soft scrub for the toilet and clorox wipes to wipe down everything else.

“Charlie, you need to remember to scrub the inside of the toilet with the toilet scrub.”

“Oookkayyyy.”

“Also, you didn’t clean the sink correctly. It still has some dirt around.”

“Awee mannn. I don’t like cleaning the ba’room.”

“I know but we gotta do it.”

I do not expect Charlie to know how to do a complex task, but I do get frustrated. Working with Uncle Charlie made me realize I need to learn how to cope and communicate with others better.

The rest of Uncle Charlie’s day consists of watching television, going to a community program to eat free food, and taking a walk to get some more exercise. Sometimes he even vacuums the living room rug without anyone telling him to do so. If he’s on schedule, which he often is, he is in bed by 10:00 p.m. after praying for his family and friends one more time. He has told me that he prays to God for a wife one day. Sometimes I feel sorry for him because I don’t think it will happen, but I stay quiet. The odds seem to be against him. I try to make sure he feels good about himself. Whenever he does a good job at cleaning or buying the right groceries, I cheer for him and tell him how much of a good job he did. I also try my best to be kind to him whenever I ask him to help me clean. I make sure it’s a request and not a demand. It is like a saying I once heard, “Love does not come in way of demand.” I love my uncle and I want him to feel comfortable and loved by the people who take care of him. He is family and family takes care of family.