Our daughter graduated a couple of weeks ago, and we couldn’t be prouder. Her graduate program literally started the following week after graduation, so she packed up her life and moved to another city, 635 miles away. As parents, watching her leave has been hard on both of us.

But it has been an especially emotional journey for the monkey.

To say that he misses her would be an understatement. For a non-verbal autistic teenager, finding the words to express feelings this big can be incredibly difficult. The first few nights after she moved away, he would wake up at 3:00 in the morning looking for her in her room. Then he would come wake us up, her picture clutched in his hand.

How do you explain that someone who has always been part of his daily routine is no longer living in this house? How do you explain that her next visit is still months away? This was his way of telling us that he missed her. In his mind, he was probably wondering: Why isn’t my sister waking up with me? Why isn’t she picking me up from school? Why isn’t she taking me to therapy? Why isn’t she giving me rides when I need them? For many kids on the spectrum, change isn’t just difficult. It can be overwhelming. The people they love become woven into the routines that help make sense of their world.

But things have shifted now. The monkey is now angry.

He has started taking down every picture of his sister. Maybe if he doesn’t see her face, it won’t remind him of how much he misses her. Maybe it hurts less if the reminders are gone. Maybe this is simply another way of grieving the loss of the routines and comfort she brought to his life.

What he doesn’t know is that he has inspired so much of who she is becoming. He doesn’t know that the little boy who taught our family patience, advocacy, and unconditional love helped shape her decision to become a speech pathologist. She may be 635 miles away, but she carries him with her every single day. And even though their relationship is changing, their bond isn’t disappearing. They are simply learning what love looks like across distance and she is chasing the dream he helped inspire.

And if I know these two, the moment she walks back through that front door in November, he will be asking her for a ride and to stop by Dunkins for his chocolate covered donut with sprinkles.