Grateful for the moments of pure joy
Canonsburg woman shares challenges of raising children with autism
Pam Perry is, in a way, both city mouse and country mouse.
The woman born on the Boomer-Gen X cusp splits her time between her home in Canonsburg and an idyllic getaway home along the water in Rices Landing.
“It’s just such a quiet, nice little area. It’s been just such a great escape for us,” said Perry, as she sat on the chic, nautically themed porch overlooking the Monongahela River.
The solitude of Rices Landing, population 385, and the river house’s proximity to launching points has been a comfort and escape for Perry and her husband, Bruce, both avid boaters. The couple met at All-Clad, where both worked, and tied the knot in 1990. In 1993, the Perrys welcomed their oldest son into the world. His birth was both a blessing and the beginning of a lifetime of a parenthood marked by highest highs and, for most, unimaginable heartbreak.
“Two of our three sons have autism,” said Perry, whose sister also had autism. “That’s how we ended up down here, because we were looking for something that we could do as a family. Being a sibling, and then having two sons with autism – that’s been my whole life, basically.”
Unlike many of her peers, Perry didn’t chauffeur her oldest sons to soccer games or baseball practices, didn’t drop them off at friends’ houses for game nights.
“Our kids never had friends. They weren’t invited to birthday parties, they didn’t play sports. And so I never got to meet other moms, because a lot of times that’s how you meet other moms, through those things. Our time was spent at speech therapy and occupational therapy,” Perry said. “A lot of our friends, their kids, they’re having babies. It’s kind of hard because it’s almost like it’s a second go-round of things that Blake never was able to do. It’s like another part of our lives where something is missing. Bruce is way more positive than I am. There’s a lot of emotions that goes with that.”
The Perrys’ oldest son, Blake, is nonverbal; two years ago, the couple made the difficult decision to move him into a home.
“That was probably the hardest thing in my life,” Perry said.
Her son Justin is more social, a Special Olympic athlete who competes in swimming, bocce, and bowling, and lends his talent for the latter to Perry’s bowling team (they play in the Strabane SNPJ league).
Perry’s youngest, Evan, 24, recently made his first major purchase: He’s renovating his late grandfather’s home.
Today, there are more resources, including social media, that help moms and dads of children with special needs navigate their unique parenthoods. But when Perry was raising Blake and Justin, 30, she felt especially alone. She created GROUP to both connect with and help other mothers in similar situations, and found strength in her marriage.
“This has been a hard, hard life. It takes us working as a team,” she said.
Last year, the Perrys took their first proper family vacation in years, to Florida.
“That was our first, like, ‘family’ vacation in 22 years, but it still wasn’t the full family because we didn’t take Blake with us. That was Evan and Justin’s first time ever on a plane, because we could just never do anything with Blake. So it was kind of a bittersweet vacation: It was great giving them that experience, and at the same time, it was hard knowing that Blake was left back.”
But the five of them have spent many a wonderful long weekend at the Rices Landing home. Blake loves being out on the Mon, loves the boat, and Perry loves that boating is something the whole family can do together.
Because despite all the hardships, the Canonsburg-Rices Landing woman is grateful for the moments of pure joy she’s experienced, the ones that sparkle like late afternoon sun on the Monongahela River outside her riverfront home.