Every Sunday, my husband and I drive 45 minutes from our house in Cambridge to our son Finn’s residential home in Framingham.

Finn is 12. For the last three years, he’s lived there with eight other boys. They are kids, like him, who attend the New England Center for Children. It’s a school that serves children with autism.

Finn lives there because his needs are beyond what we can provide. It would be physically dangerous for us, and for him, to keep him at home.

I can’t overestimate the value of that smile of recognition offered to us each time we come to the Deluxe Town Diner. The experience of being truly seen, autism and all, and yet still accepted is profound. My husband and I often split up to go out, one of us staying home with our disabled son while the other accompanies our daughter, or we pay for a babysitter to watch Finn so we can enjoy the sorts of activities we took for granted before he was born — going to the museum, to the movies, or to friends’ parties — without the sudden need to pack up and leave because of a violent outburst.

Within the past year, my husband and I stopped showing up in the many drawings and cards our five-year-old daughter, Annabel, brought home from school. Instead nearly every creation was made for him: her “baby”; her “cutie boy”; her brother, Finn. A map to Candy Land for Annabel and Finny. A valentine for Finny. A magnet for Finny. Whenever she drew herself in a picture, he was always there, always small, sometimes crying. And whenever her name appeared, just below she wrote his, connecting the dot in the i of his name to the l in her name so that it resembled a lollipop. When we recently moved to a bigger home, Annabel was nervous about Finn’s having his own room for the first time. “What if he gets scared?” she asked. “Who will sing to him?” After all, she explained, “only I speak his language.”

But what is language to Finn? At age 3½, he should be speaking in sentences, enjoying silly Dr. Seuss books, and saying, “Mama!” Or at least answering to his name. Instead Finn communicates with pointed fingers and grunts, clicks and kissy sounds, having lost even the rudimentary babbling he was capable of two years ago, when he was diagnosed with autism.

I’ve embraced Finn’s beauty because it’s one of the few areas where he can truly thrive. He can’t catch a ball, or throw straight; he can’t draw a picture, or sing a song, say my name, or a write a word. I’m quite certain he’ll never be an academic or even a good conversationalist. If I walk him through the house, pulling him forward by the hand if I’m not carefully watching, he’ll knock his head against the door-jams like a pinball. A teacher once advised us to put him in a helmet. This undiagnosed visual processing disorder was just another complication in his already complicated diagnosis of autism and PDD-NOS (persistent development delay-no other symptom).

Without possessing the means or desire for the sort of communication that forms the basis of typical relationships, Finn may have to rely on his beauty to get the support he’ll need to thrive. I’m hoping his beauty will charm people, as it has charmed his caregivers and teachers. I want him to be protected from the bullies I imagine waiting in the shadows for this soft mute boy.