Dear W.B. Yeats,
“When I play on my Fiddle in Dooney, folk dance like the wave of the sea”. Does this line from your poem the Fiddler of Dooney just talk about a fiddler, or does it mean a little more? I ask myself this question when I think about my brother, Robb.
Robb has autism, a mental disease making it more challenging for him to communicate. I used to always hold inside my thoughts and feelings about the different fits he has, the ways he entertains himself and people’s opinions about him, but your poem made me wonder. If I play my fiddle or write about Robb maybe folk will dance or listen, so I decided to start a blog “Robb’s Life” to express my thoughts and feelings for Robb, and it worked! There were viewers from South America, Europe, and Asia, but that is not what matters.
In the process of making and maintaining Robb’s Life, I realized something else from your poem that stay true to me forever. You said that “the good are always the merry save by an evil chance”, and autism saved me. It saved me from being unable to handle responsibility. It saved me from being ignorant to the different people in the world. It saved me from really being able to understand the difference one person can make.
So I want to say thank you for teaching me lessons. I would never have been able to learn myself.
Sincerely,
Astri Doub
