In school she’s absolutely “brilliant,” said onetime classmate and now friend Crystal Nevarez. The two became friends when Needham, exhausted from an overnight work shift, would sometimes be late for morning class and need to borrow class notes.
Over time Needham reciprocated, proofreading Nevarez’s papers.
Needham is so bright that she could get off work at 6 a.m., quickly write a paper, turn it in by 10 a.m. and get an A, Nevarez said.
“That’s how brilliant she is,” Nevarez said.
Seven days before she was scheduled to walk the commencement stage, Needham gave birth to Erik. He was later diagnosed as non-verbal autistic. He doesn’t talk or eat most solid foods; he doesn’t like anything gooey, cold or wet.
He’s “the best thing that ever happened to me,” Needham said.
“He’s just so happy all the time,” she said. “Every day he’s extremely excited, and even when he goes through his moods and he’s screaming and hitting himself, by the end of it he’s back to himself.
“Sometimes you can hear the screeching in the background. He’s playing on his tablet.”
Needham even enjoys having to watch his favorite movies over and over, like Hercules and Coco. She threw him Hercules- and Coco-themed birthday parties to incorporate the things he loves into his everyday life.
She worries Erik’s autism is genetic and that it will pass on to Jolyne, who was born premature at the beginning of the pandemic. But so far there are no signs that it has.
“At just three months she’s already babbling and making noises,” Needham said, “something my son wasn’t doing until he was 2.”
Needham is now looking forward to substitute teaching in the fall to get classroom experience, although she doesn’t quite know what that will look like because of the pandemic. When her baby bonding leave is up, she’ll also return to work at Walmart, where she shops for customers who put in online orders.
Yes, you read that right. Needham will add substitute teaching to her schedule of work at Walmart, evening graduate school classes at CSUB and, now, being a mom of two.