It was the end of a long day, coming back to Nanaimo from a trip to Winfield. We were on the ferry coming back to Vancouver Island in the line up for food. Gabriel, my girlfriend’s 14 year-old son, had had a rough day. Overstimulated from the vacation and tired from 10 hours on the road, he had nigh reached his breaking point. But he was entertaining himself, watching his reflection in the glass display cases and hopping across the floor as though he were riding a horse.
A lady in line waved Gabriel out of the way, as though she were shooing a fly.
“He has Autism.” said Alexandria. She said it to the room, many of whom were looking on as Gabriel danced across the floor of the Coastal Cafe. The lady absently mumbled an insincere apology, “I didn’t know.”
It was that moment, or maybe a moment later, that something snapped for Gabriel. He fell to the floor. Distressed. Frustrated. Alexandria, exhausted as we all were from the day’s journey, looked at me with tired eyes and asked me to bring the food while she moved Gabriel away in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
Once they had left, the lady looked at the staff and said “He has autism. I feel sorry for the parents.”
If you’ve seen “Scanners”, there’s a famous scene where Michael Ironside blows up a scanner’s head during a duel.
That’s how I felt when this lady talked. A surge of emotion rushed through me, and the Scorpio in me immediately began thinking of retribution. I felt sorry for her children, if she had any, for having such a cold battle-axe of a mother. I felt sorry for the people working on the ferry, that they had to listen to and absorb her bigotry without retort. I felt sorry for the world, for having her in it, and thought of asking her to leap overboard as an act of social Darwinism.
In the end, I made some platitudes about how we were all tired. How any child who had been on the road for an entire day would be equally frustrated. And I took our food and left.
It’s called the high road, and I took it. Because in my heart, I know that Gabriel doesn’t want to be frustrated and upset. Truth be told, Gabriel is one of the most amazing humans I’ve ever known. Don’t believe me? This is what he did this morning.
This is what he’s like every day. Fun, full of life and laughter. He gets frustrated sometimes, because he has a difficult time communicating. Well, so do we all (present company included). But we try, if we want to be good people, we try to develop tools to help us communicate more effectively. We try, like the Lady of the Exploding Head didn’t, to understand where the other person is coming from. We try to believe that the world can only be made better by effective communication.
As a communicator by trade, I am presented with an incredible opportunity to learn how to listen, to develop my own communication skills, to become more aware of my environment and changes to it.
I’m lucky. Alexandria is a committed, educated parent who has dedicated a significant portion of her life to understanding the autistic spectrum, and spends an equal amount time helping other people understand and cope with the daily challenges. A small part of that is trickling down to me, and I feel blessed. When moments occur between me and Gabriel, where I understand him and he understands me, there’s nothing quite like it.
And like our trip on the long road from Winfield, every turn brings new wonder, new discovery, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.
