Doomed If You're Different

Yesterday at work, I served a small family, just a mother and her son.  As soon as I took their orders, I noticed something strange about the boy—he sat rocking in his seat with his hands in his lap, he would not meet my eyes, and he spoke rather loudly when telling me his order.  I had my answer to the puzzle when the mother held up a sign behind the menu which said, “My son has autism.  He may behave strangely, please be patient.”  She looked very tired, and she fervently requested a glass of wine.  Later she pulled me aside to explain in a rather apologetic tone.

This made me angry, and very sad.  Why should something as simple as lunch at a restaurant be so difficult to handle?  According to autismspeaks.org, one in every eighty-eight children are on the autism spectrum, and it affects tens of millions of people worldwide.  But those of us who have no connection to it don’t bother to know anything about it.  I’m as guilty as anyone, of course—I only knew a very little about autism before this morning, and I never really understood it.  At some point, I may have been one of those people criticizing this mother behind her back for not controlling her son, or thinking that this kid is “weird” or “off.” 

People can be very unforgiving of the smallest things.  A child who doesn’t communicate well or behaves strangely, or an old man who stutters, or even a man with a prosthetic leg, can be judged immediately and cruelly for how they are different.  In the past four days I’ve served all of these people, and I’ve had to remind myself as I walked up to the table not to show any difference in my behavior towards them.  It was the autistic boy and his mother, however, who made me realize that I wasn’t doing enough.  My brother has Asperger Syndrome, which is closely related to autism.  I love him dearly, and nothing infuriates me more than when people make fun of him or judge him.  But I do the same—make snap judgments based on my first impression, and even if I don’t show it, I often have a great deal of impatience with people who are different.

When I learned about this boy, and saw the weariness in his mother’s eyes, I was determined that I would give them a break.  Every time I went back to the table, I spoke to the boy—he called me “Miss Eileen”—and when I brought them their check, I wrote a note on it saying how much of a pleasure it was to serve them.  The note was sincere: I was glad to help in some small way.  It wasn’t enough, of course, but it was a start.  Now I look forward to the opportunity to make myself more sincere in my thoughts as well as my actions, and to remember that everyone who is different, who behaves strangely or even badly—every single person—has someone, somewhere, who loves them the way I love my brother.  They deserve to be treated well, as people with thoughts and loves and dreams just like mine.

For more information on autism, please visit http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism.