The Autism Diaries?! (Part 11)

A new occasional series here at “Sounds Good“

To this day I have no idea why I know when it’s Mick Jagger’s birthday. I put it down to being in the same month as my own — and to that end I still know the July birthdays of people from my class in primary school. I haven’t seen them since primary school, in many cases anyway. And I know that Lisa was July 10, Luke was July 11 (pretty sure I heard he died many years ago but I do think of him every year on the 11th of July, just a few days before my birthday). Marc is the 6th, Louise the 23rd, and Duncan is the day after mine, so I’d never forget that. I do still see him sometimes too. Not enough that we’re friends, but just enough that we remember (and retain) being mates. There are many others and I remember them all. In a lot of cases I remember their phone numbers. Couldn’t tell you the numbers I’ve programmed into my phone over the years because that’s my phone’s job but I can remember Aidan’s number. He’s definitely dead. My mum rang me to tell me that she read that in the paper. I only ever rang his number once as a prank call but I’ll never forget those digits. Funny what we remember, what we retain, and of course why. My grandfather died the day before I sat my School C English exam. It’s just gone 32 years. And someone told me recently about their child finishing their final English assessment, and I said, “Oh yeah, my grandfather died the day before I sat my School C English exam, so everything I wrote about that day was death, but I passed. And got my best mark. My parents took out a compassionate consideration thing — but in the end we didn’t need it. I tried to get it for my French exam, but that was the one I sat when he was still alive. I knew I botched that exam at the time, came home and answered the phone to my grandmother saying she thought my pop was probably dead. He wasn’t breathing. He had mowed the lawns, and paid all the bills and then went for a nap. We all went down to their house that night and my grandmother sang scout songs as we lifted the body out in a bag. My first time seeing a dead body”. Why are you telling me all of that?, my colleague rightly asked. “Because I had to sit the School C English exam the next day, as I just said”, I said. Oh, and Mick Jagger was born on the 26th of July.