It always shocks me, baffles me really, most times leaves me speechless. Rarely does it happen but when these little surprises from complete strangers sneak up on me, I lose all my words and literally cannot think at that moment. To most people these little surprises are merely acts of kindness but to my husband and I they mean, acceptance.
This morning, we all woke up like normal. It's a Sunday and a lazy Sunday at that. Usually myself or my husband are running out the door on weekends. I am rushing to get to practice or a game and he is rushing the other way to get the boys to their sporting events. But today, we had some time and decided to take the boys out to breakfast. There's a cute little cafe in the next town over that we like to go to. It's quiet, not too crowded and everyone moves at a slower pace it seems like. Perfect for a slow Sunday morning. Probably because of the quietness and the more slow pace of things in this cafe, we stick out like a sore thumb from the time we walk through the doors, especially Alan. His volume was particularly loud this morning, even though they were happy noises, he was still extremely loud for this quaint cafe. We all sat down at our table and right away the staff brought over crayons and coloring book pages, hoping to appease the boys. Our family has gone there many times before so they are familiar with the boys, even Alley, which always makes us feel even more comfortable and appreciative.
I won't bore you with all the details of our family outing at breakfast because there's a lot! But in short, when we were ordering Alley became a little impatient. He wanted our attention and showed it by grabbing my hands and putting them on his ears, pushing against them to apply pressure to his own. It dawned on me that we didn't bring any fidgets for him. Lately he's really into wiki sticks, which are basically wax strips that he can manipulate to keep his hands busy. He was getting heightened, not uncontrollably bad, but we were walking a fine line at that point. It's funny because as we go through this journey you improvise and find little tips and tricks that work in different situations. For Alan at a restaurant it is ice. That's right, ICE. He took a spoon and kept sticking his tounge out in the direction of my ice water, so of course he ate all of the ice from my water. It helps him and I have no idea why. I think it's the crispness along with the crunch that almost makes his brain concentrate on the ice instead of the chaos and loud noises around him.
As his mom, I am always looking around us at public places. When his noises are very loud, when my hands are applying pressure to his ears, I am always looking around to see if people are starring. And not necessarily in a bad way, even though we have seen those glares and those stick with you forever, but just out of interest or because he is loud, I'm not sure but I find myself always looking around. To my surprise this morning, nobody was looking. I felt that he was extremely loud too and still nobody was looking. So, we carried on with breakfast, he didn't eat which is not shocking. Public places are hard for him to concentrate on eating sometimes, which we are used to. As we wrapped up we asked our sweet waitress for the bill. She came over and said "just so you know, someone paid your bill for you." My jaw dropped and I tried to speak but I don't think anything came out. I looked at my husband and he was just as puzzled. I naturally asked her who paid it, and she responded that they had left already. We were stunned to say the least. Here we are, always trying to make sure we are not disturbing anyone else, and they are celebrating us. Our family. Our autism story. My husband and I continued to try and figure out who it was and why they would do such a beautiful gesture. We still don't know, but we do know it's something that will stick with us for a very long time.
This is where I say it's so much more then the actual act of paying our bill. It's showing us as Alan's parents that we are accepted and loved. That his very loud noises in which we sometimes are afraid that they are causing a disturbance, are embraced with love. Both of us walked out of the cafe with much brighter smiles then we had on walking it. I hope whoever did this for us truly knows how special and amazing it is to know we are accepted and celebrated. I hope a little surprise finds your family today.
With Grace-
This Autism Mama
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