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My wife, patty, and I had a disturbing reminder of why the truth matters when we visited our autistic grandson's special-needs school one afternoon. The school, Melmark, is housed in a two-story, clay-red brick building, located at the intersection of two main arteries about 20 miles from Boston. Max's school is on the first floor, where school officials have managed to rent enough space to take care of 80 special-needs children, most of them seriously autistic.

Autism is not the same thing as Down syndrome or congenital birth defects that result in physical deformity. Most autistic kids are as normal looking as their peers. Some do have a vacant, distant stare; others walk with an awkward gait from motor damage. Several of the kids carried computerized speaking pads that allow them to answer questions. These children have suffered so much neurological damage that they would be effectively mute if not for these devices.

When Max saw us, he broke into a big smile and started skipping with arms wide, looking for a hug. He's a very loving kid, and we were glad to shower him with affection. He then grabbed both Patty's hand and mine and started to pull us into the school, excited at the prospect of showing us where he studied and eager for us to meet his teachers.

At the end of each school day, when the students are dismissed at three o'clock, the teachers' workday is far from over. The faculty members gather to discuss the behavior of each student, meticulously planning the next day's activities. The student-faculty ratio is high: four teachers staff Max's class of seven. The job requires great physical stamina. The kids can be aggressive at times and must be gently restrained. Gentleness in this situation often demands as much force as several people can muster. Max weighs 140 pounds, and sometimes, when he doesn't know how to make his needs or dissatisfactions clear, he'll flop down over his desk or onto the floor and refuse to move. The physical demands Max makes on his teachers are mild compared to many of his classmates' demands.

The mostly female faculty members were all remarkably cheerful. In fact, they radiated joy. Where do they get people like this to work in these schools? I wondered. A survey of teacher satisfaction revealed that helping the children was the teachers' primary motivation; altruism is alive and well in this profession.

I understood their joy. I also have felt it as I've learned to love through taking care of Max. My grandson has taught me a lot more than I have taught him; he's schooled me in being a grandfather. When my kids were growing up, I was gone most of the time—too busy trying to save the world. Now, when Max is visiting or we're visiting him, my life focuses solely on him. There's no leaving him in front of the television while I go to my desk. At night, I can't just read him a book, say a prayer, pat him on the head, and tell him to go to sleep. In order to help him get to sleep, I play repetitive games with him, sometimes for hours. When Max visits, my schedule is Max's schedule.

The Max schedule makes me examine my priorities. It makes me think about the time I devote to doing—a lot of it simply indulging in distraction—versus how much time I give to being.

As I was standing in the classroom, alone for a moment, an unwelcome thought came to mind. A question really. Why do we as a society take such trouble with these kids? Why does the school system spend as much as $65,000 per year to tend kids like Max? Max is never going to graduate and go to college and get a productive job. Likely, he will always be dependent on his family and the state. Simply to keep him busy, entertained, and comfortable creates a huge financial drain. Even if he weren't in school, institutionalization alone would run more than $50,000 per year.

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October 2005, Vol. 49, No. 10