A heartwarming video has the internet in a swell this week after a mom captured the sweet bond between an autistic teen and his younger brother.
In the now-viral video, Kate Swenson filmed her son Cooper, 13, who is nonverbal, practicing how to say his younger brother Sawyer’s name.
Sawyer is 11, and affectionately cheers on his brother as he works hard to grunt out the sounds that make up Sawyer’s name.
“Yeah! Good job!” Sawyer encourages Cooper with cheers and hugs.
When prompted by his mom, who is filming, Cooper then uses American Sign Language along with his voice to communicate “I Love You, Sawyer.”
Sawyer lights up at his brother’s communication and once again snuggles his brother proudly.
“Awww, I love you too, buddy,” Sawyer replies. He then rests his head on Cooper’s shoulder.
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Comments flooded the Instagram reel, all with encouragement and love for the two boys.
“Omg I’m crying!!!! I absolutely love love LOVE you sharing Kate! You have no idea how much hope you bring to me!” one person wrote.
Added another, “Oh my heart. this made me so emotional. Their bond and relationship is so beautiful.”
It’s a peek into a blossoming friendship that has taken most of Sawyer’s life to develop.
A Long Road to Brotherly Love
Kate tells TODAY that for the first five years of Cooper’s life, he didn’t acknowledge Sawyer.
“Sawyer would ask, ‘Why doesn’t Cooper love me? Why won’t he play with me?’”
But in 2019, the family moved into a new home in Minnesota and everything changed. Suddenly, Cooper insisted on sleeping in Sawyer’s room.
“That’s when their relationship started to grow,” Swenson shares. “It didn’t look like the one I had with my sister, where you know, we had to be told to be quiet. It was just a place of comfort. They comforted each other and became each other’s person.”
Kate describes Sawyer as a fairly “stoic guy,” but the first time Cooper said Sawyer’s name without any prompting, the 11-year-old cried tears of joy!
“That celebration you see in the video, that’s real,” Swenson says. “Sawyer is so proud.”
In 2022, Swenson released her first book, Forever Boy: A Mother’s Memoir of Autism and Finding Joy,” which takes much of what she’s shared on her popular blog, Finding Cooper’s Voice, and compiles it into a powerful testimony of resilience and unconditional love.
Through her book, her blog, and social media, Kate has been able to provide comfort for hundreds of thousands of parents of children with autism.