Bailey Island, Maine. Photo by my husband, John

Tonight was the Christmas party for my son's adult day program. He turned 21 over the summer, and that means adult services for someone with his level of autism. It's a big change to cross that line, and the first day I walked him into the program, I saw adults.

In my head, I knew that's who would *be* in adult services, but it's one thing to say the word and another to see people with disabilities and gray hair and wrinkles in their 60s and 70s and think, "This is where and with whom my boy belongs now and for the rest of his life." It was a lot to take in with a smile on my face for him and a lump in my throat for me.

Over the months, I've gotten used to it. So much so that when we walked into the party tonight and a woman who attends the program and is close to my mom's age ran up to me and grabbed my hands to dance, I simply and happily danced with her--even though I hadn't even taken my coat off yet.

And I danced with my son. "Are you having fun?" I asked him.

"This is madness," he said simply.

I smiled, because he collects phrases the way other people collect books, pulling them out at moments to show them off. They are always appropriate to the situation, but quirky.

"A good madness or a bad madness?" I asked.

"A good madness."

This isn't what you dream of when you have a baby. This isn't what you hope for when you have a young child with autism and you embark on the thousands of hours of therapy. But tonight, dancing together to corny songs and Michael Jackson's Thriller under hundreds of white fairy lights and paper snowflakes, I thought, "This is a beautiful night and we are together in this moment surrounded by love and joy."

And good madness.