We are in a rest stop on the M5 heading from Plymouth to Liverpool, the last lecture is done, the last consultation is over. It was a nice way to finish. I'd sat in a room with 8 or so people and did a discussion/consultation. They were a wonderful group whose care for those in care was palpable. Their questions were all regarding efforts to understand and desire to do better. It cheers the heart to have time spent like this.
We made a quick stop on the motorway to get something to eat and grab a bottle of water. As I entered a quick mart called reFresh a woman was sitting on the floor decorating a small Christmas tree and talking to a few people standing chatting around the cash. They were all talking about how Christmas was for children (an idea I simply can't understand) and the woman on the floor said that her son always made the season special for her. They fell silent as she spoke. She looked up from her task to their stone silent faces, "Well he does," she said.
One of them asked if her son was any better. "He has autism," she said, "he's not sick, he doesn't need to get better." Her voice was stern, not bitter. "And what I said is true, he makes the season for me. He loves Christmas. He wants me to love Christmas. At first I thought I was jolly for him, now I'm jolly because of him."
They nodded, not knowing what to say but clearly not believing her. She shook her head and went back to work.
The world is divided in two.
There are those who get it and those who don't.
2 comments:
Thank you. You made my morning.
How sad, that the other people didn't seem to know how to get it. Or even that there WAS something to "get." And that the mother had to confront those attitudes instead of being able to simply celebrate her son with others in exactly the same way any parent does.
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