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Very tiny.

Two minutes.

Oh, look at that sweet baby.

Oh. Oh, he smells Mama.

You're precious. Yeah. Are you precious?

Yes, look at Mama. Look at your mama.

Wash your hands. Hmm. Playing next.

Okay. Here too.

All right.

- History. - Okay.

- Okay. - Okay. Sounds good.

I had no idea there was anything wrong with him.

We had no issues.

Evan has a plate.

Mama has a plate.

And keep in mind as we tell these stories,

we're talking about the early '90s.

Look at Daddy. Look.

Look at Daddy. Good boy.

I'm not sure I'd ever heard the word autism before.

If I had, it just didn't seem to be a prevalent...

...topic.

- Say "hi" to Paul. - Say hi, Paul.

Um, see you Sunday.

- All right. - All right.

- Bye. - Bye.

My name is Evan Mitchell James.

I was born on April 24th, 1991.

My dad is Dennis James.

My mommy is Beth James Burns.

I am a very special person.

Being a part of Evan's life

has 100% impacted me in the best way

because he's got contagious energy.

I still refer to him as "my little boy,"

but he is a grown man with autism.

He's talented. He's a great mimic.

How are you? I'm fine.

He loves an audience.

If he knows that he's got an audience,

he loves it, and he's not stopping.

Evan sees the world as his playground.

Nothing but play and fun

until we inconvenience him with scheduled dinners,

baths, showers, and brushing your teeth.

I think he's much more intelligent

than people may assume he is.

I don't know. I just think he's so cool,

and he shows his love in, like, cool ways.

And I think all those things go back

to what a great job Beth had done with Evan.

I suspect that, at this point,

my label is Evan's mom at 60.

But I don't think that totally sums up a person.

I have lots of hats,

and I think that may have been the saving grace.

And that I have been able to continue to wear lots of hats

other than just Evan's mom.

We are in the middle, South Central Arkansas.

Population of about 18,000.

A hundred miles from the nearest airport,

be it Texarkana, Little Rock, Shreveport.

We have the Art Center, Murphy Arts District.

We do a film festival.

For a little town, we do have a lot of culture.

Being in a small southern town

proved to be part of the solution for us,

and I think that people might consider that a little unusual.

Take us to the beginning.

And b-- by the beginning, I mean the beginning of Evan.

What about your wife, Chris?

Oh, forget her. Me and her hardly talk anymore.

Well, Dennis and I-- You know, I was already 27

when Dennis and I got married. He was 29.

You know, there's a general expectation,

certainly of my generation, you know,

that ultimately you would get married and you would have children.

Not having children

or not being able to have children

didn't-- wasn't even part of my imagination.

I was actually here when Beth had one of her miscarriages.

And that was just heartbreaking.

I'd never gone through that with anybody.

For the first time, I was realizing that life does not always

turn out the way you think it's going to.

Because after the first unsuccessful pregnancy,

I was like, "Okay, well, that, that happens to people."

The second one, I was like,

"Oh, wow, this is gonna be a deal."

We went to the doctor a lot, we watched it a lot closer,

and we were able to have a successful pregnancy.

I am one of his godparents.

He's actually-- I'm, I'm one of five.

They didn't trust me by myself.

But they made a video and sent to me in California

of the first time Beth was holding Evan.

Say, "I'm two weeks old, and I'm precious."

He really was just the most beautiful baby,

young child that you ever saw.

He, he really did-- He looked like an angel. He really did.

See, go look at Baby Evan, Jordan.

He crawled. He walked.

He was pleasant. He was really pleasant.

I mean, we have a baby book. It's really funny.

And here are all of his pictures.

You know, his, his baptism, his walking,

his family, his first home.

And then it, and then it just kind of stops

because the next page is first word.

He wouldn't respond to even a simple instruction.

Like, "Come here."

So I thought, "I believe he has a hearing problem."

So, I would do little experiments.

Like, I would go to the other part of the house,

and I would hit a key on the piano

or play with the toy,

or start the movie, and he would come.

"Okay, he doesn't have a hearing problem."

He had a big birthday party in their backyard,

and it would have been about the time

he should have started having some words,

but nothing noticeable yet.

It took a while for me to convince anyone

that there was a problem

because he was so congenial, and so handsome,

and so fun, and sweet, and kind.

I do think Dennis,

he always thought Evan was gonna talk,

and he would just go, "Why won't you talk to me?

Talk to me."

I finally did begin to do

a little investigating on my own,

and I had come up with the term autism.

I knew intuitively-- I didn't know what it was,

but I knew things were not going as they should be going.

And so we put Evan into speech therapy

until we could get an evaluation at Children's Hospital.

I said, "Now, Dan, here's what they're going to tell us."

And even to that night, bless his heart,

he was in total denial.

"No, they're not."

"Yes, they are."

They did, in fact, that day, tell us that

they believe he suffered from autism,

not a developmental delay.

They used the big A word plain as day.

They would say things in that evaluation

like, "You'll probably never be able to go to church.

You'll probably never be able to go to a restaurant."

And I was thinking, "We already do do those things."

They did tell me that he needed to get occupational therapy,

and speech therapy, and physical therapy,

and all these therapies,

which was the right advice,

but really, practical living, it was pretty much...

..."Have a nice life."

And not because they were bad,

but because they didn't know either.

I don't remember feeling angry.

I'm not even sure at that point I even felt sad or disappointed.

Those things have come to me, but at that point, it was just,

"Okay, we're taking this three-year-old kid,

and we're gonna create a life for him now.

Now, how do I learn how to do that?"

Back in March, when the COVID numbers

reached pandemic proportions,

we felt very insecure about him being in an environment

that we could not control.

Transitions are very difficult for autistic people in general,

but they're especially difficult for Evan.

So, what we've learned over time

is that we need to clearly explain

when there's going to be a transition.

And since he's been with us since March,

going back to his regular schedule

is going to be a serious emotional transition for him,

for which he is not going to like.

So, what we've also learned is when we do that,

if we'll write it down on paper and tell a story about it,

he seems to understand, begin to transition.

He can read it over and over so he knows what to do.

So-- Yes, you'll understand.

So, that's what we're gonna do.

I've got my supplies, and I'm gonna get Evan,

and we're going to write a story about what we're about to do.

- Okay, Ev, it's-- We need to... - Oh.

...write a story today.

Can you sit down? Mom's got to write a story.

- Story. - Story time. Okay?

- Story time. - Are you ready?

Ready.

Okay. Today is?

Today.

What is today?

Sunday.

Today is Sunday.

Evan...

...has been...

"...staying at Madison House

with Mom and Paul for a long time."

Evan...

...stayed with...

...Mom...

...and Paul

because many people...

...were sick.

"It is time for Evan to go to..."

No, Evan.

- That's a no, no. Evan's house. - Mmm-hmm.

Mom...

...will miss him...

...very much.

Oh!

Oh!

- Are you good? - I'm good.

Go to Magnolia tomorrow?

- Yes? - Yes.

You're a good guy. I'm proud of you.

All right.

Anything you wanna say?

One two, three, four.

Yes, you can take whatever you want.

...job.

Yes. Mom has a job.

Mom has to go back to her job,

and you have to go back to your house.

Monday.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Mom will come get you.

- See you Wednesday. - Yes.

- Wednesday. - Mmm-hmm.

- Wednesday. - Okay.

Good job.

Robert.

Yes, Robert's there.

Uh-huh.

He doesn't usually get upset when he's on a regular schedule.

We just do his schedule, and he's okay with it.

So, him getting upset...

He usually just-- "Okay, that's my life," you know.

But that, that hasn't been his life, so...

Show Mom your book.

Um...

So, he was a little more upset than he would normally be.

Normally, he just does whatever he's supposed to do.

This is Dad.

- "Evan goes to college." Yep. - Yeah.

So, this is his sort of, like, I-know-you book.

El Dorado is a small town. My parents live there.

My sister actually was working at the hospital

the night that Evan was born.

And then, you know, two to three years after that

is when I had heard that

Evan had been diagnosed with autism.

I had a close-knit family.

Dennis had a close-knit family.

We had a close group of friends.

I didn't feel the need to try to hide him.

Beth had very limited resources.

Certainly locally.

I mean, she had to dig and research

and find her resources herself.

There's no Internet, there's no cell phone,

there's no Google, there's nothing.

And so we were going to have to help ourselves.

I've always said this, that Dennis and I were similar.

In that, give us a problem.

We're gonna take to our beds

and pull the covers over our heads,

and Beth is gonna figure out what to do.

And she did. And she discovered the National Autism Society,

and they were having their annual conference.

And we really thought,

"Since we know nothing about autism,

let's go see what this is."

In Las Vegas of all places.

We were able to gather information

that we had not had before.

I mean, we're trying to immerse ourselves in it

and just absorb everything that was being offered.

There were people out there facing the same things we were.

None of us were really seeing the answer for Evan.

There's no right or wrong. There's no map.

I felt a certain sense of confidence that we could do it.

I just didn't know how we were gonna do it.

I'd flown to Las Vegas, but I did ride back in the car

with Beth and Dennis to El Dorado.

We ended up driving straight from Las Vegas to El Dorado

because there was not a hotel, motel,

anything available all through that night.

And Beth had bought a book,

Let Me Hear Your Voice.

So, we had to stay awake. So we read this book.

And it was written by a woman in Manhattan

who had all the resources of New York right outside her door.

But again, like us,

it's like none of these particular therapy programs

fit her autistic child.

So, she started taking bits and pieces from the different therapies.

Year four was a critical year in the child's development,

to really do these intense therapies.

And that's-- Evan was about to turn four.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

Happy birthday.

Are you four?

There's Evan's name. E-V-A-N.

E-V-A-N, Evan.

Beth and Dennis found a therapy clinic

in Memphis, called Communication Station,

that was taking a similar approach

to what we had decided would be best.

Turn around this way.

You haven't opened this one. You wanna try to open this one?

The theory at the time was the best way to treat autism

was with behavior modification,

and you move into this therapy environment.

I went for two weeks. Dennis came for one.

You're going to have to never assume

that he can learn anything,

that he's going to have to be taught everything.

And this is going to take hours and hours every day.

And here's how you do it. And...

Wow.

Yeah. We got to use that pointing finger.

All right!

When you're trying to bring him in,

bring him into your world, give him the words,

give him the explanations,

it's not natural to them like it is to you.

So, your level of frustration is gonna be great,

but your level of understanding has to be great too.

It's just your pointing finger. There we go.

All right.

And if it's really gonna be successful, your family's gonna have to do it,

and your friends are gonna have to talk to him this way.

Because at this point, still,

we have no means...

...of communication.

Oh, she's gonna ride in the car.

You want him to ride in the car together with the pig?

He couldn't, wouldn't, whatever you wanna call it,

even point to what he wanted.

Evan, you did a good job with the puzzle...

...and the letters, and I like it when you... point.

Point.

And I can remember saying, "Will there ever be words?"

And then they said, "Well, we're gonna get some."

B-L-U-E.

Blue.

We were in Memphis at Communication Station.

They said to me, "Beth, what are the two things he loves the most?"

I said, "Coke.

TV."

She said, "Now, I want you to practice

a sign language for 'I want TV'."

So, you know, um...

Okay.

She said, "We're starting there.

He will never get TV or Coke again

until he says the words."

Cookie. Cookie.

I want cookie.

I want cookie.

So, when, you know, when you say, "What was Evan's first word?"

It was "Coke" or "TV." One or the other. I don't know.

But that led us to

begin to learn to communicate and have him communicate back.

- I... - Want cookie.

Good. Excellent, Evan. Very good.

We were going to have to use everything in his senses

to teach him about his environment.

When we did this first little rudimentary book,

it's not all here anymore, that's how many times

he's looked at it, it just worked.

When I realized that he was going to be able to read,

him reading the words was one thing...

...but then we had to give him the meaning of the word.

He could easily memorize the word "table"...

...but there was no meaning to the word "table."

So, there was a process in there somewhere where I realized

his visual memory was going to be excellent.

And that's where we began the labeling of everything in his world.

So, I'm walking around there. I'm making these little cards.

You know, cutting up construction paper,

a little card, with a marker and some tape,

and I'm taping everything in the house.

So, window had "window" on it, chair had "chair" on it,

flower had "flower" on it.

And so, as we walked around the house,

he saw the word, he saw the thing.

Well, of course, then pretty soon I realized that,

"Oh, if I put the word 'chair' on this chair,

then that's a chair.

Not everything that looks like this in this world is a chair."

So, now we have to have the word "chair" on every chair

so he understands the word "chair" means all of these things.

Or the word "flower" means not just this thing,

but it means all of these things.

And that "dog" is a dog

regardless if it's brown, or big, or little, or the--

All of these things are dog.

And as we would go, we would share these things

so that everyone would know,

"Okay, now, now we're doing this."

Use your pointing finger and say...

- Evan. - Evan.

- And... Grandma. - Grandma.

Say, "Richard." Yes.

Beth's one of five children.

And their attitude is, "We face it.

We deal with adversity, whatever it is."

There is nobody in our family

that has ever shied away from Evan.

His friends.

Nobody has ever shied away from him.

Bringing him up as a family, it was no question

of whether or not he was gonna be included in our lives.

Beth makes you aware of what needs to happen,

but also lets you know that there's not any fear there.

They might have been afraid,

but just because I didn't know what to do,

and they were willing to learn.

And everybody learned exactly how they were supposed to communicate with him

so that we could all be on the same track.

And when it became apparent

that he was going to need a helper, interpreter,

and that was at the point, of course, that Richard dropped the big bomb

that he was going to come home...

...and he was going to be that for him.

We were driving.

It started to occur to me in the car,

but I, uh, kept it in my head that I could do this.

So, I've committed to coming back to El Dorado for a year.

Richard went to school with Evan...

...and he went in the classrooms.

Richard was Evan's inclusion therapist.

Uh, went to kindergarten with him, took him to therapies.

We brought the people from Communication Station to El Dorado.

My mom went, my sisters went,

my brothers went, the friends went.

They came down to El Dorado and trained me

in Evan's classroom, in his house,

all of his normal environments.

I don't know if Evan would have made it through preschool.

Without that, I certainly don't think

that what happened to him in the next...

...few years would have been possible at all.

When we started these therapies with him,

it was very frustrating to him

because he did not understand what we were doing.

You know, a change in temperature,

a lot of change in texture,

those were all issues.

I would have to hold his hand in a bowl of shaving cream

for him to get used to that texture.

You know, he could walk into a room, and there'll be

a fluorescent light bulb that's humming,

and not perceptible to us, and it will freak him out.

I think he hears more than we hear.

I think he sees more than we see.

His senses are magnified.

When he's looking at that yard of grass,

we see grass, Evan may see one blade.

He eventually just realized that I was gonna be putting him

in situations that were new to him,

but that even started to become a routine.

Yeah, I would go over to their house at six o'clock in the morning.

I mean, he's sound asleep, I would throw him in the deep end of that pool,

and he would just start squealing with delight, you know.

And it really helped him get through the rest of the day.

And as you get the body to work

in sync with the mind, the better the mind works.

Of course, now that sounds so trite,

but 30 years ago, we didn't understand

how the mind and the body affected.

Or if we understood it, we weren't--

The average person was not practicing it.

Seeing him progress...

...and the bond that formed between us...

...was, was the most rewarding year of my life...

...and I'll always treasure that and treasure him for it.

One of my best childhood friends who does not live here now,

she came to visit, and I introduced her to Evan.

You know, he was four or five years old at this point.

She just goes, "Oh, Richard, he's, he's your soulmate."

And she was right.

He really is.

Evan, what do you want to eat?

Chicken strips, French fries, and ketchup. Drink is Sprite.

Okay. That's what I figured.

To him, everything is a video. That's how his brain works.

And just like if you say what are the specials today,

he recites the whole Cat in the Hat.

Are there some specials today?

We got lots of specials today.

Fried eggs and ham.

Ham on a moo.

Ham soufflé, and with cheese.

Ham on toast.

Glazed ham.

Ham fritters.

Minced ham.

Rum ham.

Ham kabobs.

Ham pulled pork.

Ham in the morning.

Ham, ham, ham.

All the lovely ham.

I am. I am.

All right. Well, I guess that's what I'm having.

Being in El Dorado, we realized that we had a village

of very loving, dedicated people

that were family and friends of Beth and Dennis's

that, that picked up all the slack.

There are times where you get very tired.

Well, i-- it makes the difference,

you know, for someone to say, "I'll do that,"

or "I'll take them somewhere," or "I'll, um...

...I'll pitch in for you."

Somebody had a day that they would

pick up Evan, and then with that person,

you had a specific routine that you did.

You know, he is very regimented, and no surprises.

And it meant you only had him two hours.

I mean, it wasn't a long block of time.

It's not about the hour

as much as it is about the acceptance.

To give you the space

that you need to do something normal.

And it's not about doing something special,

it's about doing something normal.

It gave Evan a social life,

and it gave Beth and Dennis their lives back too.

And I would accept help from anyone

who had Evan's best interest at heart, mine, Dennis's.

Beth knew that he was tended and taken care of...

...with someone who loved him and cared about him.

And he was-- He is still, he is very intriguing.

I mean, he's hysterical.

Evan, you're so weird.

You have no idea.

I was one of the few people at that point

that Evan was comfortable,

um, and, and Beth and Denis were comfortable

leaving him with me.

Uh, I don't know where they went,

but they, they were doing something that night.

So, Evan came up and stayed with me in my apartment.

"Richard is a great baby sister."

- Babysitter? - Babysitter.

And I was just letting him do his thing.

I think I was doing some kind of domestic drudgery.

But I was walking, you know,

in and out of the bathroom and past him.

And, and I just looked down at him,

watching him make faces in the mirror just constantly,

and I said, "Evan, you're so weird."

He goes, "You have no idea."

He'd never put a sentence together in his life.

And I dropped whatever I had in my hand.

I turned around, and it's like-- it was like The Exorcist.

I mean, I didn't know what was happening.

Come to find out, and it took a while to figure it out,

this was, uh, in The Lion King.

You're so weird.

You have no idea.

And that's exactly where that came from.

Here's your schedule.

So, I will, uh, put this in his room,

and every once in a while, you'll see him reading it.

So, he reads it kind of over and over and over again

until he gets it in his head what it is he's supposed to do.

So, that's pretty much the process.

A variety of responses that he might have

as the day goes on in between now

and when we pack our bags tomorrow.

The, uh, erasing of the schedule on his iPad

is sort of, like, trying to say, this is not gonna happen to me.

If it's not my iPad or it's not my schedule, it's not gonna happen.

Do you like to go back?

- Do you like to go back? - Go back.

Go back, back, back...

I know-- Listen, I know you don't want to.

Evan, Evan, Evan.

- But... don't be-- - Nope.

Don't be mad or sad. It's just for a couple of days.

- I get it. - Ouch.

I know.

I know.

- Shut up. - Oh, okay.

- Oh, pack a bag. - Yeah. Tomorrow.

You have to go back. Pack a bag.

Yeah, tomorrow.

- Okay? - Bag. Okay.

Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm?

When it was time to put him in public school,

we knew that he needed to be in a regular classroom.

How do you teach someone normal behaviors

if they're not around normal behaviors?

And how do you get people to understand people with disabilities

if they're not around them?

But he knew everything a kindergartner was supposed to.

He had some words.

We have never, to this day, acquired conversational language.

You cannot have a conversation with Evan.

I'm not f-- I haven't figured it out yet.

But due to the language acquisition that we've done,

he has learned how to express himself,

and he can tell you what he wants and needs.

There were points I look back on,

and I must have been extremely naive,

because I thought someone would ask me like,

"What would you like to happen to him as he enters public school?"

So, I'm thinking, "Okay, he's-- he knows all the stuff."

Yes, he doesn't-- can't have a conversation with him.

Yes, he continues to have sensory issues.

But I still, on the other hand, say

he deserves to be included in a classroom.

He has the knowledge,

and that's his least restrictive environment,

which was the law at the time.

And Beth, knowing what she knew...

She knew her rights as a parent.

She knew district policy.

Legally, she had the right to have him in a regular classroom

and request the school district to provide an aide

to assist for him to be in the classroom.

So, we go for the preschool meeting,

and the, uh, special education person from the public school said,

"All right, well, Evan James will be placed

in the self-contained classroom at so and so, so and so, so..."

- I said, "Pardon me." - Putting him in a self-contained special ed classroom

was the only thing that the school district was offering.

And Beth was like, "No, he's got to be in a regular classroom

'cause he's gonna emulate whatever behavior he's around."

None of those people were bad people.

This was an unusual situation.

It was an unusual request.

It was going to require things

that had not been required before.

I understood that.

At the same time...

...it was going to happen.

And so we came to an impasse that day.

Let me say he went to the regular classroom

with, uh, an aide.

She said, "There's no way that

Missy's gonna be able to do this by herself."

So, we had Diane Smith as an aide.

We had Valerie Barnes as an aide.

And they came, and they would sit with Evan

to make sure that he was on task,

but they also would help the other students.

So, it wasn't just Evan.

And then there were other students that came.

And she was somebody that those parents

could go and talk to and learn from.

Consequently, through the years,

there was lots of training that was done.

And several students with autism ended up at Hugh Goodwin

because of the training that those people

had taken upon themselves to get and took seriously.

There were some people there, some of the best...

...classroom teachers and therapists that I have ever met

in-- no matter where I've been in this country.

Really, growing up with him in school

was where I learned, or I was impacted most by him.

There weren't very many children like Evan at the time.

That wasn't something that the world really knew about, and especially El Dorado.

But I do think that now that his impact on everyone's awareness

has probably made a 360.

As Evan progressed through this, we were going to take

as many people with us as we could.

If you get the appropriate therapies and, and that sort of thing,

you are going to have a better life.

There is just no way around it.

Mary Pat was seeing that in her classroom.

There were five of us that came together

and wanted to create HOPE Landing.

So, a child with special needs--

It was a one-stop shop,

but it, it serves the whole family.

It wasn't just the child. It was the child's family.

By this time, they're talking about it.

They're talking about water therapy, and horse therapy,

and all those kinds of things that are really, really making a difference for kids.

There was a movement, and we were able

to start planning for what we felt

what would be a peaceful setting

that provided traditional as well as nontraditional therapies

in support for entire families

without being based on whether you could pay or not.

It was a huge idea

for a small Southern town to be able to pull that off.

So, how's Evan been over the last, uh, 24 hours?

Um, didn't go to sleep very well last night.

So, it was kind of a late night.

And he was afraid, when Paul took him for an ice,

that he wouldn't bringing him back to get his stuff.

So, he's a little

nervous, but he hadn't...

...been terrible.

I can't help you much.

- Go to the movies. - We'll try to go to the movies,

but right now, we need to pack your bag to go to group home.

- First? - Yes.

Okay. No one's going to get it till you come back. I promise.

Shut up.

Listen, you need to pack your bag.

Pack your bag.

Wow.

Yes, yes, you have to go back

because I've got things I have to do.

- Pack your back. - Pack a bag.

That's all?

- "Mickey and Donald Have a Farm!" - Okay.

- It's "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh." - Okay.

That's all? No books?

That's a no, no.

"Dr. Seuss's ABC."

"The Cat in the Hat."

- And "Green Eggs and Ham." - Okay.

Now, do you want DVD player?

What's next?

I see owl. Do you?

Owl.

Do you want this in here?

"Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss."

- That's it? - That's it.

Group home first.

Yes, you're going to the group home tonight. Yes.

- Ready to go? - Yeah, Paul's truck.

- Go to the movies. - We're gonna try.

- We're gonna try. - Okay.

- Car. - We're gonna go in Paul's truck today, okay?

Oh. Truck.

I know we usually go in Mom's car, but

we're gonna go in Paul's truck today.

You can sit in the front, Evan.

You wanna sit at front or in the back?

- Doesn't want. - Yeah.

Hi, everyone.

Okay, here we are.

Here's a cat in a hat.

I know. Did you miss it?

I miss it.

You did? You pretty happy?

You happy?

Yeah.

All your movies. Wow.

"When I wish to make a wish,

I wave my hand in a swish, swish.

Then I say, 'I wish for fish.'

And I get fish right on my dish.

So, if you wish to wish a wish,

you may swish for fish with my Ish wish dish."

Would you make sure there's some toilet paper in there, please?

- Remember. - Remember.

Loving Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

- You gonna do good? - Do good.

- Yeah? - Yes.

Okay.

- All right. - You all right.

- When am I gonna see you? - See you.

I'll pick you up...

- See ya Wednesday. - Wednesday. Okay, good.

All right.

- You okay? - You okay?

Okay.

- Bye. - Bye-bye.

- Love ya. - Love you.

See you later. Say bye.

Bye.

Things were progressing with Evan,

and, you know, we were dealing with

each new year's set of circumstances.

Dennis was in a play, Dearly Departed,

and Dennis was getting very bad bruises.

It got to the point where Dennis did show the bruises

to Matt Callaway, his doctor,

and Matt was immediately alarmed.

APL.

And I can't tell you the A and the P, but the L is leukemia.

Just me and my dad.

Th-- That just pulled the rug out from under everybody

because we did not, of course, see that coming.

And there is-- Okay.

There is... You do it.

For me, personally, for the village,

there was kind of a shift in focus

from what we were going to do for people like him and in his future

and to "Oh, my goodness,

now... what are we gonna do about this?"

"My mom and dad...

...are Beth and Dennis James."

Dennis was, um...

Well, he was special. That's all I'm gonna say.

Sometimes you can just look at Evan,

and you, you can see Dennis.

"My eyes are blue, just like my daddy's."

The village had to rally for this

because we had Evan, who needed attention,

and now we had Dennis in the hospital

for who knows how long in Little Rock.

Over the next three years,

he continued to... seek treatment.

He had periods of remission.

You know, you couldn't really explain to Evan

what was going on.

I mean, there, there wasn't a way to explain

that kind of concept to Evan.

"Daddy."

It was just a very rough time.

But once again... Stupid me.

I felt like it w-- wouldn't be easy,

but we would make it.

And so, for three years, we did treatments.

Friends would help, go sit with Beth

or take shifts to go sit with Dennis

so that he wasn't by himself.

And we see the reemergence of a community of people

willing, once again, to reach out and, and lift up,

and support, and care

with no... judgments.

We thought we were beating this. We really did.

Against all odds, we thought we were beating the cancer.

I mean, he endured a lot,

but he still-- he kept his sense of humor.

In the beginning, he did,

but it was, it was just painful to watch.

For me, he was a, um,

a constant in my life, a constant male in my life.

And he meant a whole lot to me.

It's Daddy. It's Daddy.

It would have been a long shot

if he would have had long-time survival

with, with his-- th-- this form of leukemia.

And, um, he...

I will say this.

I've never seen anybody fight, fight harder than he did to--

Because he knew what it would mean to Evan...

...for him to, um, not make it.

♪ I have often walked down this street before ♪

♪ But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before ♪

♪ All at once am I several stories high ♪

♪ Knowing I'm on the street where you live ♪

♪ And, oh the towering feeling ♪

♪ Just to know somehow you are near ♪

♪ The overpowering feeling ♪

♪ That any second ♪

♪ You may suddenly appear ♪

Because Dennis did die in the hospital,

and Evan was not with me,

there was gonna be-- have to be a communication of that.

And so all the way home, I kept thinking, "Now--"

uh, everything I know about Evan.

I knew that he had some basic religious understandings.

The Lord bless you, keep you.

The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord... and give you His peace.

Amen.

And anytime that I could communicate something with him

in a picture or words, he was going to understand.

So, I came home, and I got a...

...picture board of heaven.

What you would-- You know, heaven. It was a--

Clouds, and the sky.

And I got a picture of Dennis,

and a picture of an angel, and a picture of Jesus.

And I put them all together

and explained to him that Dad had gone there,

um, and he was with Jesus.

And just like we didn't see Jesus,

we wouldn't see Dad anymore.

Now, I will say this. There's a difference between...

...death and grief.

R-E-D...

...spells red.

Roll two, scene Richard, take one, mark.

Beth, interview B, take one.

When Dennis died, we, we all felt like

we'd had the rug pulled out from under us.

And, and for months...

I mean, many, many months,

we were just walking around, um, like zombies.

Lot of Evan's, um, therapies early on

were about emotions.

We did a lot of emotion expression therapy.

He had to learn to read people's faces.

And so he would look at me, and I would know that

when he looked at me that I had to have a look on my face

that I was calm, that I wasn't sad,

that I was okay, and I was gonna make it through the day.

And he would really examine me.

He, um, he really reads people's expressions.

Everything he does is in pictures.

Either in his mind, he would take an Instamatic photograph

of something on a television.

Since the beginning, Evan has been obsessed

with taking, uh, photographs.

He has always, um, taken pictures

of the TV screen and put them together.

We can't quite figure out what it means,

but to him, he's putting a sequence of things together.

He takes expressions,

a series of expressions, many times,

and then there's always a...

...like, a couple blank screens.

Like, that's the end of that movie

or an end of that thought before he begins...

...another series.

He missed his daddy.

And so he was carrying these 50--

Zero to 50 pictures.

They were numbered.

And I said, "Beth, what do they mean?"

She said, "I don't know."

So, she went somewhere one day, and I said,

"Evan, let's put your pictures out."

So, we-- he laid them out in order on the kitchen floor.

And I said, "Give me words for these pictures."

Ah. Oh, my gosh, talk about communicate.

Don't say he can't communicate.

It started out with pictures from home, happy times.

And then it was a series of scenes from The Lion King.

And it was sad. Cry, sleep, cry.

I mean, he had a word for every picture.

It was amazing.

We spent one Saturday,

and we put it together in a book called Me and My Dad.

"I miss my daddy.

I'm not...

I wish

that he were still living

at the new house with Mama and me."

He was so smart to go and find that

and give words to his emotions,

and then he could convey it to someone else.

That just blew me out of the water.

One of my favorite examples of the village rallying.

Evan's-- The birthday after Dennis had died,

Beth asked all her teenage friends

if they would dress as Disney characters

and come to her house and be part of Evan's birthday party.

So, there was Cinderella, Tigger.

All of these, like, eight to ten people,

showed up in costumes

just to make Evan happy and feel better.

There was a change.

With Dennis's death, there was a change.

It kind of turned my focus from

training, teaching to...

...planning for a future

because I'm all he has.

It was apparent to me life skills, a safe environment

were going to become the important things,

not whether or not he was in a normal classroom.

What you doing?

- Did you do good? - Do good.

You did? Was it okay?

- Is it okay? - Yeah?

- Yeah. - Did you miss me?

- Miss me? - Yeah.

- You gonna go home with me? - Go home.

Okay. Get your stuff.

Go and get your stuff, baby.

- Evan's stuff. - He's been very good today.

He has? Well, thank you for helping--

- Evan's stuff. - You're welcome.

Evan's stuff.

She gonna help him, isn't she?

I love these, but I don't need to eat.

Your class is pretty small today.

Well, yeah. We got two more...

Great.

All right, let's go.

See you, Evan.

- See you, Evan. - Bye, Evan

Hey, Ev. Hey, Evan.

Come here.

- Say "See you next week." - See you next week.

- See you next week. - See you next week, Evan.

Bye.

After Dennis passed away, it had been a couple of years,

and Beth's sister, Heidi,

was talking with Paul's sister, Laura.

They had been friends from high school.

And knew that Beth and Paul had dated many years before.

I met Beth in the spring of 1983 at El Dorado High School.

Heidi, my sister, is in the same class with his sister,

and we all have to go to this event.

It was love at first sight.

She walked up the sidewalk. I was introduced to her.

I mean, it was like the conversation never ended.

And so we dated for some months,

and then we got engaged.

You know? Isn't that what you do when you're in your twenties?

We considered getting married,

and things just did not work out for us at that point in time.

And we were mutually hurt by that,

and parted as friends.

I didn't see her again until 2007.

Paul's sister, in fact, had returned to El Dorado

to teach nursing at the community college.

So, I ask about Paul.

And, you know, "Things didn't work out

exactly as he had intended, but he's got five children."

I said, "Oh, my gosh."

I think she was thinking, "He still has no sense at all,"

you know, with that many kids.

I said, "Well, you tell him, um, that I asked about him."

I was coming down for a visit.

And Heidi and my sister, Laura,

decided that they wanted to get Beth and I

back in the same room together.

"What if next time Paul comes to town...

...we fix them up? We all go out to dinner."

And she goes, "Oh, it would make them so uncomfortable.

Wouldn't that be great?"

"Paul's gonna come to El Dorado,

and we're all gonna go out to eat,

and we want you to come along."

And I said, "Have you lost your mind?"

And I said, "Oh, come on. Come on.

It'd be fun to catch up."

It had only been a year since Dennis had died,

and no one was breaking down my door,

but I had made it pretty clear that I was unable, at this time, to,

uh, move forward in that sense.

And I went to dinner with my sister at Fayrays,

and I did not know what to expect.

And she walks in.

She and I looked at each other, and she sat down by me.

We all sat to where she was gonna have to sit beside him.

And the conversation just started all up again

and, uh, never stopped.

They never once put us in the conversation.

They never on-- We weren't there.

She said, "Would you like to come back and-- to my house

and-- so we can keep talking, and, and you can meet Evan?"

Uh, that was my first--

that was my first encounter with Evan, that night.

There is something very soothing about that that, you know...

I've said very often that he probably saved my life. He probably did.

I think, when I left that evening, we both realized

it was divine intervention.

I didn't know really if I would see him again,

and it wasn't too much later that I got an email from him.

That was back in the days when you emailed, you know.

This is before texting and stuff like that.

And, you know, he kind of said, "I'm probably gonna keep on

emailing you and calling you and probably coming to El Dorado

because, uh, I lost once, I'm not gonna lose twice."

I can't imagine coming into all this like Paul did.

I mean, he's got five of his own,

and yet Evan was

part of Paul.

Even though he didn't know crap

about what to do about Evan, you know,

he was stunned by the whole thing.

He never really shied away from that.

My own relationship with Evan took a very, very long time

to become what it is today.

All right. Are you ready to go get an icee?

- Yes. - Yes? Would you like my phone?

Yeah?

- What-- - Austin and Weston.

- Not this weekend. Next-- - Not.

- Next time. - Not yet.

Get in the car.

There's a green triangle.

Uh-huh.

There's a green triangle.

Uh-huh.

There's an orange... Right.

I understood his habits

and got those down a lot quicker

and a lot easier than I did...

...his form of communication.

When I first started going back and forth,

Beth and Evan would drive me to the airport.

I remember one time in particular...

...towards the beginning of all this,

he's walking back and forth in front of me

with a book in his hand,

and it's a book about going to the airport,

and what you do when you go, you know?

We go to the airport to take trips.

And I realized in the middle of all this,

he was ready for me to go.

I won't say everything he did was purposeful,

but I would say the majority of it was.

I mean, he had a little message and everything.

- Mmm-hmm. Always. - Really, especially there in the beginning

that we did, we did together.

Especially if it's a verbalization or if it's a direct

- interaction with a person... - Mmm-hmm.

...he is trying to say something.

So, if he doesn't have the words for what he says,

then he's going to replace it with an action

or some kind of verbalization,

trying to get you to understand what it is he wants.

"Christmas is my favorite holiday."

Look into the mirror.

I love it!

I love it!

I knew you would.

♪ Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer ♪

♪ Had a very shiny nose ♪

♪ And if you ever saw it ♪

♪ You would even say it glows ♪

♪ Then one foggy Christmas Eve ♪

♪ Santa came to say ♪

♪ Rudolph with your nose so bright ♪

♪ Won't you guide my sleigh tonight? ♪

♪ Then how the reindeer loved him ♪

♪ As they shouted out with glee ♪

♪ Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer ♪

♪ You'll go down in history ♪

- Great job! - Yay!

When we did begin to see each other on a consistent basis,

we made a promise that no matter what we did,

not his children or mine would suffer.

We made a commitment to,

you know, pursue this relationship.

I was kind of getting used to the idea that

he might be my boyfriend or something,

but I was not interested initially in,

like, oh, getting married.

I mean, I had a job. I was in El Dorado.

He was in St. Louis. Paul-- Evan was in school.

I was in no way going to, to leave that for that.

So I told Paul, I said, "I'm never gonna meet your kids.

Come when you can. We'll have a great time.

That's where this thing is going."

And I said, "'Cause I'm not-- I can't meet those kids."

Paul's kids were wonderful. You know, they love him.

I mean, he is their brother.

But now, if you ask him who they are,

he's gonna list them in order.

Grace, Kenny, Jackson, William,

Caroline, Aston, Watson and Dan.

Ready, set, go!

My dad did give us a forewarning and said,

"She's gonna be here when you get home from school."

And we got home from school,

- and she was just sitting at the counter... - She was.

...and her makeup was perfect,

and everything was just together.

- Mmm-hmm. - And she just had, like, a...

She just has, like, a presence.

- She does. - And she was very striking

- from the get-go. That was my first impression. - Yeah.

Yeah, it was, like, an ad--

an adjustment for us.

Obviously, someone new in the house with her and Evan.

But it's also, like, an adjustment for her

- 'cause we're-- we're us, you know. - Big adjustment.

- Like, it's-- Yeah. - Big adjustment.

There was five of us, and most of us were teenagers.

And my dad's not a low-maintenance kind of guy.

And we are not exactly, um--

- We got some maintenance to us. - Yeah. We...

- We weren't easy. - She told us, um,

a while back that she would hear us

every once in a while going... "Where is she?"

- "Where is she?" Yeah. - "Where is she?"

When she first was spending a lot of time up there

and we didn't know her very well, we'd all kind of--

Or if we wanted something, we'd send, like,

one, one-- usually the cut-- the cutest kid out--

- "You go. You go." - You know, like... Yeah.

It really was like she never skipped a beat.

I'm sure she did in her own private time.

But, to us, it just seemed very--

I don't know. It's just-- It's always been...

It's always felt natural. Like how it should be.

And then came the time for them to actually meet Evan.

And, you know, kids are just different.

They're just resilient.

Whenever we actually got down there,

Beth was talking to us, and Evan just came in

with these pile of sugar cookies.

- I think there were, like, six of them. - Yeah.

She just turned around and suddenly goes, "No, sir,"

and took, like, three or four of them away.

And he started following her around, around the house saying,

- "No, sir. No, sir." - Yeah.

And that was, that was our first-- that was

- my first impression of-- Yeah. - That was my first time

ever seeing Evan, my first experience.

- And I just thought, "He's mad." - Yeah.

- This, this is what it is. Let's, let's go. - Yeah.

I think, at first we put a big emphasis

on just making everything as smooth as possible for him.

We went about our regular lives,

and you just added in this other variable.

They never really seemed to skip a beat.

I think it says something for them. You know, what kind of people they are.

There was a lot of change growing up. A lot of moving around.

Anything that's different just kind of flows naturally.

Beth made a book about people getting married.

People in her family.

People in my family. Her and Dennis.

People in the Disney movies or the other movies he used to like getting married.

When we got married, it was kind of generally accepted that,

as crazy as it would seem, I would stay in El Dorado,

and he would stay in St. Louis.

We just decided that's the way it was gonna be.

So, we still were doing school, going to work,

trying to travel on the weekends.

That's a lot.

I was committed, and so was Beth.

We were committed to both Evan,

and we were committed to the five other children.

It was a balance in making all that work.

So, we finally decided that when Evan turned 18

and didn't have to go to school anymore,

I would quit my job, and we would have to--

Evan and I would have to go to St. Louis.

I was sort of excited.

We're gonna go to a big city.

I had done a lot of research.

There was an autism community there.

We'll be able to take advantage of all sorts of resources

that we haven't had or...

"Maybe I-- maybe there's things I don't know about."

Maybe we had a better chance of finding facilities

and post-high school life for him.

That did not turn out exactly as planned.

One evening, it was just Beth and Evan and I,

and he kept turning off the TV.

And I would turn it back on, and he would turn it off,

and I would turn it on, and he would turn it off.

And Evan just reaches down and grabs my hand,

and grabs my wedding ring

and starts trying to pull it off my finger.

Evan made it very clear that he was mad about the whole darn thing,

and he was mad at Paul because...

for having caused the whole darn thing.

And he wasn't happy.

Evan had been in his room there at the St. Louis house,

and... for some reason, I had-- I walked into his room.

There was one of the books

that I think Mary Pat had made for him.

Me and My Dad.

It was about him and his father.

And he had been looking at it.

"Dad."

He didn't wanna forget him.

That moment, as hard as it was,

I think it, it helped him get some things out of his system

that he couldn't communicate.

I really think it helped me to make sure

I wasn't afraid to talk about his dad to him.

Because before all that, I didn't.

After all that, I did.

That was our moment,

and it was pretty damn good after all that.

She had every intention of creating a life in St. Louis.

And there just--

It never was that comfortable of a fit, especially for Evan.

When it didn't work,

I think it rocked us on our heels a little bit.

He would just look at me like, "What, what are you doing, Mother? What are you thinking?"

I mean, I could almost see that in his face

when I would pick him up, like...

..."What are we doing here?"

And he would just look at Beth and go, "Pack a bag. Airplane."

He's like, "Take me home now."

You know, he didn't have a life outside of the house at all, and he was totally used to that.

Go anywhere in the community and know people, and they know him, and...

I think, in retrospect, it was a lot to expect of Evan.

And he did his best to adjust till he just couldn't.

His body literally just had stress responses. I know he had seizures.

He was kind of taken away from everything he knew growing up.

And, like, the way I think about that, for me, it's like...

I mean, like, "Would it bother you?"

Probably, you know. And there you go.

In retrospect, I feel kind of stupid having thought

that he was gonna be happy, or that we could find

all those things that I perceived in my mind

had to have been missing from our experience.

And the one thing that we really needed, we already had.

I don't know, the El Dorado,

the place is, like, what's home to him

as much as the people there, and getting pulled from that

- was really hard for him, I think. - Yeah.

He missed his community. He missed his friends.

And it was almost like we had instilled in him so much community.

We made the decision...

...albeit sadly, that

the best thing for Evan would be to come back down to El Dorado.

Paul said to me,

"Pack your bags and take him home."

It wasn't me having to go to him and say,

"I gotta..." You know, "I gotta go."

He came to me.

And so we...

...packed our bags and came home.

And so I went to work at the community college

to create a pilot program in El Dorado, Arkansas,

to include people with developmental disabilities on the college campus.

Beth contacted me. She was the new program director of the Stepping Stones Program,

a newly-formed program at the college

that gave people the opportunity to do things

that they would never have gotten to do on their own.

My friend Jason here had always wanted to be a firefighter.

So, through the Stepping Stones process,

Jason was able to train,

and he was able to come up to the El Dorado Fire Department

and be a firefighter with us.

She's a mentor to me.

And she, she helped me get an internship,

and... I'm, I'm happy that she did.

They made as big an impact on me as I made on them, I think.

But I also feel incredibly lucky

to have been a part of that for, for even a short time.

In the meantime, at my house...

...my issues with my child were still unsolved.

"Evan goes to college."

"One day, Evan and his mom got in the car

and drove to a place called..."

"Magnolia."

I was getting a little more desperate,

a little more afraid something would happen to me.

And now we weren't in St. Louis,

and now Evan was by himself, and ugh, ugh, ugh.

I-- I'm getting old.

And he doesn't have the patience with his old mother.

And, you know, there's a lot of--

There were a lot of dynamics going on.

We-- 'Cause we were there. Just me and him.

You want to stay here all day?

She comes home from church one Sunday

and she calls me and she says,

"I ran into Ralph Weiser at church today."

He had been instrumental in creating programing

for people with developmental disabilities,

that sort of stuff, in Magnolia.

I had no idea that in my little backyard,

there was this little place over here.

He said, "I'd like to show you around" or something.

And I pulled up to this place,

and there was a day program for preschoolers

with developmental disabilities, and adults.

She went over to look at it, and it was the perfect situation for Evan.

All of the group homes that I had been interested

in looking at, people shared rooms.

And I knew that Evan James was never gonna share a room with anyone.

And he said, "Yeah, there's five rooms on one side and five rooms on the other."

I said, "You mean everyone has their own room?"

"Yeah." Well, of course, Monday morning,

I was on the phone, and I said, "I might be interested some time

in Evan getting on the list to live in the group home

and maybe go to the day program."

And she said, "Beth, from what I understand,

Evan's at the top of the list."

And she said, "Evan, when men turn 21,

they go to college in Magnolia.

So you are going to college in Magnolia."

It's how it started.

"Evan gets a house."

"Just around the corner from Evan's college,

there's a beautiful house where really nice people live."

Honestly, the first time she took him over to see the group home,

and we were so nervous about that,

he met everybody, he saw his room,

he, he saw the whole house,

and he just go-- turned to Beth and said, "I love it."

"They ask Evan if he would like to live there.

Evan and Mama decided it would be a great place to live."

The plan sort of happened to me,

and when it did, I felt okay.

And I had never felt okay about it.

And then she fixed up his room. Of course, the cutest room

with The Cat in the Hat and Dr. Seuss.

And at first, it was just a few days.

It was a slow integration.

I got two minutes, and I'm gonna take it in there.

Put it up.

Put it up.

- Are you good? - Are you good?

I was as scared for him to do it as he was to do it.

And so our transition was very slow for him,

even spending the night.

Evan is going to be able to go to Magnolia

and have a chance to become as independent

as life will allow him to be.

But something did happen...

...uh, about this time.

Boom. We find out that Evan's got Crohn's.

About 40% of people with autism also have Crohn's disease.

He was in excruciating pain,

and I had no idea what to do with him.

Hospitalizations and procedures and illness and weight loss.

He was developing rectal abscess

that were requiring incredibly painful surgery.

And I'm like, "Oh, great.

You know, we got autism, we have seizures,

and now we have this."

He learned, "Well, if I don't eat, I don't go to the bathroom,

so maybe I won't eat."

I mean, it was just miserable.

Once again, here's Beth

who gets one of the over-the-door shoe racks,

and that's Evan's medical,

so he could tell her what he needed.

Like, she would have the different creams, the gloves, and...

"What do you need? What do you want?"

So he could help communicate what he needed.

So, at that point, we took Evan back to St. Louis.

You would start to get a handle on things,

and then they call you up on the phone at work and say,

"We just did a scan on him, and his, uh, his appendix is about to rupture.

You know, you have to get him to the hospital immediately."

I don't know how he did it.

It almost killed him,

um, in, in fact.

I'd never seen her

almost to the point of being hopeless.

I mean, that's just not Beth, but she was about there.

But all of our people aligned again

from just out of the blue

to guide us through another situation.

Crohn's is in remission.

He's gone from having to have monthly infusions

to, um, monthly injections.

It's still something that... they have to stay on top of,

but it is under control right now.

He is-- Continues on that medicine today.

That is not easy on the body.

It creates quite a detriment to the immune system.

I noticed he was really scratching his eyes and his ears.

A suppressed immune system causes all sorts of problems.

So, we have been fighting here, as of late, topical--

A dermatitis that has affected his ears and his eyes.

Being, uh, kind of unable to explain this to him,

he's really rubbing his eyes.

And as he's really digging in there, he's scratching his cornea.

And there's going to be long-term vision damage if he...

...rubs too hard, too long.

Same thing with his ears.

The written word is very important in our family,

so we need to make sure that he continues

to have access to that strength.

Actually, I think it's time that we put some medicine in his eyes, so...

Eye time.

Yes?

- Eye time? - No.

- You ready? - Ready?

- Eye time. - Mmm-hmm.

Eye time.

Try not to for a minute.

- Be gentle. - Yes. Be very gentle. Don't rub hard.

Beth always knew, and Dennis too,

that Evan was gonna need special attention all his life.

And that was one reason Dennis fought so hard with the leukemia.

You put his health issues, his autism,

the death of his father, moving,

new and more health issues...

That's a lot. That's a lot for anybody.

Evan has a real autism

and all the medical and emotional and disabling effects of it.

And yet there's something special about him.

And I don't even know how to put it into words.

He can do amazing things with that brain.

It's just not things that are going to keep him from needing...

...someone to make sure he's always okay.

Look at me.

Look.

- Nose. - Yeah. Did you have a good week?

- Good week. - Good. Good. You ready to go home?

- Yes. Good week. - All right, let's pick up your stuff.

Give it to your mom.

- What is it? - All right.

- Say "Open it." - All right.

- What is it? - All right. What is it?

- Good. - Good. I love it.

Good.

- Okay. - I like that.

I like that.

- What? - What have you got?

Oh.

Santa Claus ornament.

Yeah, I thought that would be good too.

I have told all of my nieces and nephews,

my great nieces and nephews, and my stepchildren,

and I intend to tell their children if I live long enough...

...that my only requirement of them...

...is that they go see him once a year,

and it can't be a holiday.

Because I figure there are so many of them

that surely two of them will show up every month

if they commit to that one time of year.

Go into Magnolia and taking Evan to dinner.

That's the only requirement.

And if everybody does that...

...then a couple of times a month, Evan gets to go out to dinner

with someone he really cares about.

And if something really terrible is going on in his life,

somebody will know.

I don't really see it as a responsibility,

and I never even saw it as a question.

I feel like Evan's village is gonna go down to the next generation,

and I feel like he'll always have people.

We need to do our part because he's impacted us so much

and done so much for us in our lives that he doesn't even realize.

We're just gonna have to take shifts, you know.

- You're gonna take care of him for three months. - No.

He can move into the room next door.

I don't-- I'm not worried about it, but, like--

I, I know for sure that there's a community behind Evan.

I have complete faith in that.

And I have faith that all of us will come together

and do what's right at the end of that.

It's just what we would do for...

- Our brother. - Yeah.

There is no fear or worries

about what the future looks like for Evan.

I feel like he is going to survive and thrive,

um, as the older generation moves on.

We'll make sure he's taken care of.

We just have really big shoes to fill.

Really big.

This, this story shows a pattern...

...of me, um, running into just the right person

or just the r-- right, um, help,

or just the right piece of information

when it was necessary for me.

Uh, which is, you know,

maybe luck, maybe divine intervention,

maybe... Whatever. I don't know.

But behind all of that...

...uh, I'm looking at the picture of these people.

And this is my family.

These people were the people that struggled through

so that he learned to go to church,

and go to a restaurant,

and go to a family dinner. And, you know, I--

People call me all the time, "I can't take him anywhere."

Well...

...find these kind of people

who will accept you no matter what.

They're not your family.

You have to find them because they're key.

For me, it was these people.

And I owe them everything.

This commitment that Beth has to Evan,

you can't help but be moved by it.

You have no idea what it takes.

You have no idea what kind of love that kid can provide.

He's taught us so much through the whole thing.

You have no idea what love,

and work, and dedication this took

to get one person to the point he is today.

And that's one person.

What Beth is doing can be super impactful

if the message can be spread because there's a lot of people out there

that don't have that support.

Being a movie star again, Evan? - Movie star.

I just think of how much my life has been enriched

by knowing Evan and him being a part of my life.

I still get excited when I see him

and when he comes up and gives me a kiss

or hugs my neck and says, "I love you."

Oh, my gosh.

I just hope that

people who have a Beth or have an Evan in their life

take this and really help them.

One thing I hope people take away

is, is what a privilege it has been...

...to be part of this story.

I think people found a common purpose,

and in this common purpose was Evan.

So, it's all as it ends, as I said before.

What would I say to someone? There's so much to be taken from a situation, uh, like this.

It's not that you don't-- Do you get tired?

Heck yeah. I'm gonna be tired by Sunday.

But as far as the life's experience,

I am different, I am better.

I'm a better person.

So, maybe, you know, when people say,

"Oh, you do everything for him,"

you know, I'm like, "Maybe he saved me."

I don't know. Who saved who?

♪ You've got a friend in me ♪

Your favorite song.

♪ You've got a friend in me ♪

♪ When the road looks rough ahead ♪

♪ And you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed ♪

♪ We stick together and can see it through ♪

♪ 'Cause you've got a friend in me ♪

♪ Oh, you've got a friend in me ♪

♪ Some other folks might be a little bit smarter than I am ♪

♪ Bigger and stronger too ♪

♪ Maybe, but none of them will ever love you ♪

♪ The way I do ♪

♪ It's me and you ♪

♪ Boy, as the years go by ♪

♪ Our friendship will never die ♪

♪ You're gonna see it's our destiny ♪

♪ You've got a friend in me ♪

"The end."

Good job.