At three years old, a chatty, energetic little boy named Owen Suskind ceased to speak, disappearing into autism with app | dG1fQy1rRmpPMDA3R00
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 There is a boy who is just like other boys,
00:04 until one night he sees from his window a storm on the horizon.
00:09 Owen, who are you?
00:13 I'm Pizza Man, and you can't be.
00:16 All of a sudden, at three years old, Owen vanishes.
00:21 The doctor says, "Let me explain what autism is."
00:28 Some of the kids don't ever talk again.
00:31 I remember thinking, "I'm just going to hold you so tight,
00:36 and love you so much that whatever is going on will go away."
00:41 We're beginning to give up hope, and one day we're watching the Disney animated movies,
00:47 and he says he doesn't want to grow up like Mowgli or Peter Pan.
00:52 What the hell just happened?
00:57 And all of a sudden it became clear to us, he's using these movies
01:01 to make sense of the world he actually is living in, our world.
01:05 So at that point, we began to speak to him in Disney dialogue.
01:08 When did you and I become such good friends?
01:14 Whatever works to get to Owen.
01:17 I've been scared my whole life of growing up.
01:20 Peter Pan doesn't want to grow up, because when you grow up,
01:23 you lose all your magical childhood times.
01:26 My hope is that he is independent enough to be able to grow older on his own.
01:32 When I look in the mirror, I see a proud autistic man,
01:37 ready to meet a future that is bright and full of wonder.
01:41 He's going to have to fall and fail.
01:47 We're not afraid of that as we used to be.
01:50 Catch Gus!
01:54 I just can't believe how far Owen has come.
01:57 The future, I'm still searching for it.
02:03 Who decides what a meaningful life is?
02:06 It's like I always say,
02:10 children got to be free to lead their own lives.
02:14 [Music]
02:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]