'The noise can't hurt me' Weathering Iranian attack with a son on the autism spectrum

• Published date: 16 April 2024
• Author: HANNAH BROWN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

My son Danny, who is 28 and on the autism spectrum, was home, and we had a good time last Saturday, going to synagogue, visiting friends, listening to music, and watching a movie. I never turn on the news on television in front of him – it just stresses him out, and for what? -- but I was checking the headlines on my phone, as was everyone in Israel on April 13

Still, although it was announced that Iran had launched an attack and various kinds of missiles were headed toward Israel, I maintained a resounding denial. I was confident or told myself I was sure, that we would go to sleep and wake up at the usual time on Sunday morning so we could head back to the village where Danny lives in time for him to eat breakfast with his friends and go to the carpentry workshop he loves.

After all, I told myself, we live in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem has been spared the worst onslaughts of missiles from Hamas because – according to conventional wisdom -- no Muslim-majority country or terror group wants to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque.

I had so convinced myself that this was true that I dreamed for a few minutes in the early morning hours of April 14 that the children who live upstairs were dropping toys on the floor, something they do occasionally but never in the middle of the night.

I jolted awake, thinking next that they were dropping a piano repeatedly—these children are two and six—and only then understood that I was hearing the booms of missiles landing or being intercepted. For a moment, I tried to tell my groggy self again that it was the children because the sirens hadn't started, and the Homefront Command app on my phone was silent.

Well, you know what happened next. The sirens blared, and the app bleated. In Jerusalem, we have 90 seconds to get to a shelter. I was already fully dressed, which is how I've been sleeping since October 7, and I ran to Danny's room to get him up and into the shelter.

He cried, begging me to let him sleep and put the covers over his head. As a matter of fact, I told him that he needed to put on his sneakers and that we had to go to the shelter for a few minutes. I told him he could have a snack when we got home. I told him he would have fun talking to our neighbors.

All this continued as the sirens continued and the booms became more frequent. I know people in the south of Israel have suffered bombardments for years, but I had never heard anything like this. Neither had Danny. And like many people on the autism spectrum, loud noises...