Regular readers of my blog know that I have a son with special needs. He has autism. I have written about quite a few of the happy, the sad, the inspiring, and the heartbreaking moments that we have shared with him, so I will let you explore those blog posts of mine by yourself.
What I would rather talk about is a wonderful moment, when I met a delightful person, Mike. Before that story, a preamble…
My son is 23 (as the time this was written—2021). Those of you who have special kids know the significance of adulthood for these kind souls. As lucky as we are in this country, where services for people with “disabilities” are relatively plentiful, at 21 most of those services disappear or are replaced by others, with the added hurdle that now we are dealing with legal adults.
For example, from the time he left high school, my son will never attend anything called a “school” anymore. He does go to a place where, depending on the severity of the condition, they socialize, participate in activities, have a certain degree of responsibilities (including something very similar to an actual job, etc.), and as far as I’ve seen, the guests are very well treated. Perhaps I’ll talk more about it some other time.
Anyway, that’s where I met Mike.
About a year before the pandemic, I went to pick my son up at “the place”. As I was waiting for him, I saw many people walking towards a line of buses; all these people were adults, all noticeably… “different”. As a parent, I could not help but feeling angry at the people outside in the community who surely are rude and worse to them… And yes, I have to admit that I felt sorry for them.
That’s when I met Mike. Mike seemed to be about my age (at the time of this writing, I’m 56), and clearly had intellectual and verbal limitations. That did not slow him down one bit. I actually heard him before I saw him. Cheerful, social, loudly greeting every single person he passed by. Eventually, he got to where I was waiting for my son. He looked at me, smiled broadly, pointed at himself, and still smiling, said, a tad too loudly: “MIKE! MIKE!”
I smiled back at him, pointed at myself, and matching his voice volume, I said “ONÉ!“
Mike smiled widely, and pointed at me while saying: “ONÉ! ONÉ!”
And then he hugged me… And I hugged him back…
He let go, and without missing a step, kept walking and greeting people until he got in his bus.
You know what? I want to be as happy as Mike is. Everybody should be as happy as he is… And for sure I don’t feel sorry for him. I hope to see this kind soul again.
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