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Cody Matsuda and Joey Matsuda

Overview

Cody Michael Matsuda and his younger brother, Joseph William “Joey” Matsuda, were born eight years apart: Cody on February 15, 1979, and Joey on June 20, 1987. As a child, Joey admired Cody’s intelligence and gentleness but struggled to understand why his brother’s exhaustion so often prevented them from playing. He asked, “Why don’t you want to play with me?” Cody loved Joey and felt guilty about disappointing him, but could not easily explain the involuntary limits imposed by his illness to a young child. Their love coexisted with hurt and misunderstanding.

After Cody’s spring 1995 suicide attempt and resulting loss of speech, Joey learned American Sign Language (ASL) and accepted his brother’s use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) without judgment. As adults, Joey understood Cody’s exhaustion as disability rather than choice and became a disability-rights attorney whose advocacy gave legal form to the protective instincts he shared with their sister Pattie.

Origins

Joey was the youngest of four Matsuda siblings. By the time Cody’s illness had become disabling in adolescence, Joey knew him as an avid reader who slept during the day and was often too tired to play. Joey associated Susie with nurturing, Pattie with energetic play, and Cody with intelligence, quiet gentleness, and frequent unavailability.

Joey could not yet understand that Cody’s exhaustion was involuntary rather than a choice to sleep instead of playing with him. He loved Cody and wanted his attention, so his brother’s inability to join him could feel like rejection.

Joey’s affection also gave Cody pleasure: unlike classmates who mocked his vulnerabilities, his younger brother admired him without reservation. Cody nevertheless felt guilty that he could not keep up with Joey’s energy or give him the attention he wanted. Joey might ask, “Can you play with me?” and hear, “I’m too tired, maybe later.” Repeated exchanges made Cody feel that he was failing as an older brother despite his affection.

Dynamics and Communication

Before spring 1995, Joey asked Cody direct questions: “Why are you always sleeping?” “Don’t you like playing?” “Are you mad at me?” Cody tried to reassure him: “I’m not mad. My body just gets very tired. It’s not because of you.” Joey heard the explanation but could not yet reconcile Cody’s affection with an illness that repeatedly kept him from playing.

When Cody was too tired for active play, Joey sat nearby, brought him toys, and told him about school. Cody valued the company even when he could not respond with the energy Joey wanted.

After Cody’s spring 1995 suicide attempt caused acquired motor apraxia of speech, he became nonspeaking and began using AAC and ASL. Joey was seven during the crisis and eight that summer. He learned ASL quickly, more readily than Pattie, and regarded signing as another way to talk. He thought Cody’s AAC device was “cool” and wanted to try it, without fully understanding what the loss of speech meant to Cody.

The change gave some exchanges more time. A question such as “Why don’t you want to play?” no longer required Cody to produce an immediate spoken explanation. He could answer through AAC or ASL, and both brothers could process what the other meant more carefully.

Family and Cultural Context

Cody and Joey were both autistic and mixed-race, with a Japanese American father and a white mother. They grew up in a household where direct communication, literal thinking, routine, and individualized accommodation were ordinary parts of family life. That environment helped Joey accept Cody’s changed communication after the 1995 crisis without treating it as a loss of personhood.

Ellen’s professional commitment to disability access and Greg’s coordination of the family’s language learning supported Joey as he learned ASL and became familiar with Cody’s AAC.

Joey applied the family’s explanations about love and marriage to Cody and Andy Davis without treating their relationship as an exception. At eight, he asked Andy, “Are you and Cody gonna get married?” The question reflected his literal reasoning and his acceptance of his brother’s relationship: he had heard Cody say he loved Andy and understood that people who loved each other sometimes married. Disability, queerness, and the family’s mixed heritage did not make the possibility unusual to Joey.

The eight-year age gap did not assign Cody a fixed caregiving role. His ME/CFS limited active play, while Susie assumed extensive nurturing responsibilities as the oldest sibling. Cody contributed through conversation, gentle presence, and reading to Joey when he had the energy. The family distributed care according to capacity rather than birth order.

Shared History and Milestones

Childhood Before 1995

Joey remembered Cody as the brother who read constantly, whom their parents called “very smart,” and who seemed to know everything. As Cody’s illness developed, Joey also knew him as someone who needed extensive rest and could not join physical play as Pattie did. Joey brought him toys, asked questions, and sat nearby. Cody responded with affection when he had the energy and apologized when he needed to rest.

Spring 1995: Family Meeting After Cody’s Suicide Attempt

When Ellen gathered the family on a Saturday morning to explain Cody’s suicide attempt, seven-year-old Joey curled against Susie. He asked, “What does that mean? Suicide?” Susie answered, “It means he…he tried to make himself stop living, Joey.” Joey asked, “But he’s not dead…Right? He’s still alive?” The exchange made his fear of losing Cody explicit.

Ellen was exhausted, Pattie was angry, Susie tried to support the family, and Greg tried to remain calm. Joey drew their house with all six family members as smiling stick figures labeled MOM, DAD, SUSIE, PATTIE, JOEY, and CODY. The drawing expressed the togetherness he wanted to preserve. Ellen brought it to the hospital and placed it beside Cody’s bed and medical equipment.

Summer and Fall 1995: Learning ASL

Joey learned ASL quickly while Pattie had to work harder at it. He practiced with Cody, other family members, and himself, and signing soon became an ordinary part of his daily life. He asked to try Cody’s AAC device and experimented with typing messages. Joey recognized that Cody could communicate through signs and the device without treating his inability to speak as a loss of personhood.

Summer 1995: Meeting Andy

Joey met Andy during the summer Cody and Andy’s relationship became official. At a Moore-Matsuda family dinner, he noticed Cody’s expression change when Andy arrived. He watched them sit close, saw Cody rest a hand on Andy’s wheelchair, and noticed them holding hands under the table. Cody then used his AAC device’s flat synthesized voice to announce, “YOU’RE MY BOYFRIEND.”

Joey looked at Andy, Cody, and the adults, who had gone quiet and turned their attention to their food. He knew Ellen had said people who loved each other sometimes married, and he had heard Cody’s AAC voice say “love you” to Andy on the phone the previous day. Joey therefore asked, “Are you and Cody gonna get married?”

The adults’ discomfort puzzled him. “Mama said people who love each other get married sometimes,” he explained. “Cody said ‘love you’ on the phone yesterday. I heard him.” Joey applied the same rule to Cody and Andy that he would have applied to any other couple; their disabilities and queerness did not trouble him.

Fall 1995: Susie Leaves for Stanford

When Susie left for Stanford, Joey lost a daily source of comfort. He cried, begged her to stay, and asked when she would return. Cody tried to spend time with him when he had the energy, reading to him and answering questions. Andy, increasingly part of the family, also gave Joey attention and reassurance.

1995–1998: Cody’s Recovery and Homeschooling

As Cody entered the Matsuda-Davis Homeschool Cooperative and built routines around AAC, Joey saw his recovery and increasing stability. Cody seemed happier and more present with Andy. Daily family life made AAC, rest, and wheelchair use familiar to Joey, as it did Cody and Andy’s relationship.

1998: Pattie’s Pregnancy

At eleven, Joey watched fifteen-year-old Pattie experience hyperemesis gravidarum and preeclampsia. He saw Cody advocate for her through his AAC device and the family respond to another medical crisis. Cody’s support showed Joey that protection could take the form of words and reasoning as well as the fights through which Pattie had defended him.

Public and Private Context

Outside the household, Cody’s intellectual reputation sometimes preceded him, and Joey was known as “Cody’s little brother.” After Cody became nonspeaking, other people could reduce the brothers to a nonspeaking older sibling and a younger sibling who could sign. Their relationship held more than those visible facts.

Within the Moore family and disability community, Joey’s acceptance of AAC and ASL and his direct questions about Cody and Andy’s relationship showed the effect of a household where disability access and queer relationships were treated as ordinary parts of family life.

At home, Ellen and Greg saw Joey’s hurt when Cody was too tired to play and Cody’s guilt about disappointing him. They helped the brothers connect when Cody had the energy and explained the limits of his illness to Joey, while trying to make room for both boys amid repeated family crises.

Emotional Landscape

Joey admired Cody as the smartest person he knew but could not understand why someone so capable could not push through exhaustion to play. His hurt took the form of questions rather than anger: “Don’t you like me? Don’t you want to spend time with me?” He loved Cody and wanted to believe the refusals were not personal, even when they felt that way.

After the suicide attempt, Joey feared he might lose Cody and felt relief when Cody survived. His drawing of the family together, with Cody smiling, expressed his wish for all six of them to remain together and safe. Learning ASL gave him a concrete way to reconnect.

For Cody, affection for Joey was accompanied by guilt. He valued his brother’s acceptance and adoration but took Joey’s disappointment as evidence that he was failing to be the older brother he wanted to be. When Joey asked, “Can you play?” and Cody had to decline, his physical limits did not remove that feeling of failure.

Joey’s eagerness to learn ASL brought Cody gratitude and another source of guilt: Joey had to learn a language because Cody could no longer speak. His brother’s easy acceptance of AAC nevertheless helped ease some of Cody’s shame about his disabilities.

Health and Communication Access

Both brothers were autistic. Cody was diagnosed in young adulthood, approximately 1999–2001; Joey self-identified in his late twenties and did not seek a formal diagnosis. Joey’s literal thinking, directness, and difficulty with unspoken social rules were familiar traits in a household shared with other autistic people. Growing up with Cody also made AAC, sign language, and explicit communication ordinary ways to exchange information.

Cody’s ME/CFS and later motor apraxia of speech limited some forms of connection during Joey’s childhood. Exhaustion prevented him from sustaining active play. After 1995, however, Joey could sign questions and wait for Cody’s typed or signed answers without requiring an immediate spoken exchange.

Joey also knew disabled family members and friends beyond Cody, including Andy and their aunt Heather Moore. He learned to treat disability as part of human variation rather than a tragedy. Watching Cody and Andy encounter barriers informed his later disability-rights law practice, which sought accommodation and presumed competence for clients whom institutions had underestimated.

Crises and Changes

Spring 1995: Cody’s Suicide Attempt

Joey’s question, “What does that mean? Suicide?”, and his drawing of the family with Cody smiling recorded how he tried to understand the crisis at seven. Cody’s survival brought relief, but the attempt also changed Joey’s understanding that people he loved could be lost. He became more watchful of his family’s safety.

Summer and Fall 1995: Learning ASL

Learning ASL let Joey meet Cody through a communication method Cody could use. Joey found signing engaging and became an active participant in making conversation accessible rather than expecting Cody to speak.

Adulthood: A Changed Understanding

As Joey grew older and later recognized his own autism, he understood Cody’s adolescent exhaustion as ME/CFS rather than weakness or lack of interest. He also understood the suicide attempt within Cody’s accumulated illness, medical dismissal, and suffering rather than as a character flaw. That perspective eased some of the childhood hurt: the thought “Cody didn’t want to play with me” gave way to “Cody literally couldn’t.”

Legacy and Lasting Impact

Growing up with Cody shaped Joey’s understanding of disability, communication, and justice. He learned that speech was not a measure of intelligence and that fatigue could be a disabling medical condition rather than a moral failure. Those lessons informed his disability-rights practice and his direct, evidence-driven challenges to institutions that underestimated his clients.

For Cody, Joey’s affection provided continuity through the suicide attempt, loss of speech, and transition to AAC. His smiling figure in Joey’s drawing, Joey’s enthusiasm for ASL, and his acceptance of Andy as Cody’s boyfriend gave Cody specific evidence that his younger brother still knew and loved him. As both matured, Joey remained his brother and became an ally whose legal advocacy expressed the protective instincts he shared with Pattie.

Relationships Family Relationships Cody Matsuda Joey Matsuda