But visit David Royko’s website today and you’ll see that the space devoted to his father is a sideline. After years of growing up not particularly happy to be Mike Royko’s son and eventually working through the issues with his father, his digital scrapbook is a small pleasure, perhaps a solace. Scroll down his home page and you’ll come across a link to the material titled “Mom & Dad.” Above that are the links to “Psychology” (a psychologist, Royko runs the divorce mediation program for the Cook County court) and “Music” (he began covering bluegrass for the Tribune in the early 90s). Higher still are the links to “Autism,” and to the material Royko calls “Ben Stories.”
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Ben is his 20-year-old son. He has severe autism, and David Royko has done a lot of writing about him, including this story ten years ago in the Reader. The other day he e-mailed friends of his to let them know that he’d compiled all this writing, plus some new material, into the e-book The Chronicles of Ben—Adventures in Autism, and he wanted our help in getting the word out.
He goes on, “As [his wife] Karen has said, we had to literally beg, borrow or (figuratively) steal to do get whatever services and therapies we could for Ben, and it added up to at least $30,000 or more every year. The begging brought some help from friends and family (my father helped a lot when he was alive but Ben was only 3 years old when Dad died, and every cent he left Karen and I disappeared into autism-related costs).”
“The Affordable Care Act will help,” Royko concludes, “though a single-payer plan would be better (in our opinion).”
“I’d feel almost a little bit dishonest or disingenuous if people are reading what I’ve written on autism but don’t really know what this has meant to the finances for the family.”
“To me it still feels very overwhelming what we have to do, whatever it is, and I thank God Karen is smart and resourceful and as capable and intelligent as any mother can be.”
