anticipate with such pleasure – crawling,
walking, and enunciating the first word –
were not achieved. Dani’s paediatrician
assured them this developmental delay
was the result of poor eyesight and muscle tone. “He’s too good,” the doctor excused the lag, “he rarely cries.” Kathy
longed to believe the doctor, but even
though she was an inexperienced firsttime mother, she sensed the reality was
very different.
While many mothers might speak of
being determined to help their children,
not too many would go as far as Kathy
did. In 1988, a year prior to the fall of
the Berlin Wall, she and her husband
hastily packed their bags and their child
and escaped through the Iron Curtain to
Vienna, never to return. They took up
residence as Jewish immigrants and
were placed on the waiting list for emigration. A Viennese paediatrician correctly diagnosed Dani’s problem as autism. This diagnosis, Kathy says, influenced their decision to move to Canada,
a country that provides governmental
health coverage.
Though the government provided the
Laszlos with health coverage, those first
few years were far from easy. In Hungary,
Kathy had been educated as an accountant; in Toronto, lacking both the knowledge of English and Canadian certification, she was forced to work as a cleaning
lady for three years. In the evenings, she
took English classes. Her husband, who
was un