135 numbered pages. Total pages of actual writing is closer to 100. 100 pages? That should take me an hour to read. The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida took me two weeks to finish and another week to fully digest. If it took me two weeks to read any other 100 page book I’d stop reading. With The Reason I Jump I needed all of that time.

Jump is unlike any book I’ve read. It is a memoir where Naoki describes what is it like to have autism. He accomplishes this by answering 58 questions ranging from: “Do you find childish language easier to understand?” To, “What’s the worst thing about having autism?” And, “What are your thoughts on autism itself?”

I would read a few questions or so and have to close the book to reflect. Some times you read and the words fill your mind and make it seem as if you’re dreaming while awake. Other times you read something entirely new and you see the world through a different hue. Jump does not do these things. Its language is simple and easy to digest, however there is a nuance to it, the simplicity sits in your heart.

For me, Naoki doesn’t present anything new when it comes to interacting with people with special needs and disabilities. Naoki is the anchor of the book. He is your Point B. If you ever get confused or feel lost, his earnest voice helps you find your mental footing. I found that his answers were generalized when he uses variations of the phrase, “Us kids with autism…” Which, would be like if I wrote, “Us kids born in Canada…”

I read the memoir through Naoki’s voice and treated it as his own journal. The Reason I Jump is his story. Yes, other people who have autism may share the same answers as him but others will differ. Just because you read this book doesn’t mean you know every person with autism. You get to know Naoki. Maybe this is another reason why it took me so long to read. I wanted to take the time to get to know the author. Naoki tries to explain and justify all of his mistakes with clarity and empathy. Jump is his argument of why you shouldn’t give up on not only him but anyone who has a disability. It’s his doctorate of why even if he has autism he is still worth something and has plenty of things to offer.

For parts of Jump I felt as if Naoki’s answers were cold and surgical. As if he was a robot without emotion or feeling. I felt as if he presented his feelings as stone cold facts. Jump isn’t a book that feels sorry for itself. It refuses to beg for sympathy. Instead, there’s a nuanced empathy to it. Naoki allows us to glimpse into not only his world and his feelings but how they fit into our world and his struggle to merge them together. He just wants to belong and be accepted for who he is. Isn’t this what we all want?

Reading Jump made me jealous. Not jealous in a, “This boy with autism has a best selling memoir” way. Jealously washed over me because my younger brother has autism. I’m jealous because he is the same age as Naoki and he can’t express himself the way Naoki can. One of the questions that Naoki poses is: would you like to be “normal”? Naoki says, for him, having autism is his normal and as long as he loves himself, what’s the difference between “normal” and the way he is. That passage slayed me because I used to wonder what if my brother didn’t have autism. I couldn’t imagine him any other way. He’s my brother and that’s all that matters. He loves me and I love him. Does the fact that I’m going to be responsible for him when my parents die, one of my deepest fears? Absolutely. I shudder at the thought of it. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to provide for him as well as my parents have. I’m terrified that I can’t protect him, that as he grows older he’ll never be accepted because he has autism and people won’t put in the time to get to know him. I’m scared that he won’t have any one that will care about him or that he’ll be ignored because people believe he has nothing to offer.

I’m scared that I won’t always be there for him.

The Reason I Jump made me think of my brother and all of my fears with each page. Any time I see some one with special needs or disabilities in the community and if I see a negative reaction to them my heart plummets. I rarely see anything verbal or that would illicit a response against it. I’ve learned to notice the subtle things. I notice the glances, the eye-rolls, and even some scowls. What am I going to? Call them out, confront them, and give them a lecture why they shouldn’t make assumptions? Of course not. I can’t prove that it was directed at my brother. I want to fight and defend him because someone passing us on the street doesn’t know him like I do, I wish I could explain to everyone that my brother isn’t stupid and blind to empathy just because he thinks differently than them. People just see the disability and assume he’s useless. This is easier to do than to invest time in getting to know and understand him. Thinking about it, is like taking a baseball bat to my heart.

My friend Francis Arevalo has a poem called “Johnny” and one section came to mind when I was reading Jump:

Humans think, and humans think differently than other humans, and humans who refuse to accept that other humans think differently than other humans are just scared of being human.

After finishing Jump I realize there is a little Naoki in all of us. He is attempting to make sense of his own world and the world around him. This is the essence of The Reason I Jump. He wonders what he needs to do to fit in, to make his parents proud, and how to take advantage of the opportunities which allow him to pursue his dreams.

Naoki isn’t stupid, he’s not emotional blind, and he’s not anti-social. He might not be able to hold a conversation or speak to a room of 200 people but this doesn’t he’s useless. He just thinks differently than you or me.

Naoki and other people with special needs and disabilities need patience, time, and love.

That’s not asking too much right?