Now:
The following is a story written by a friend of mine; Nancy. I had the pleasure of working with Nancy’s son, Kalin when I worked in an Integrated Learning Center (ILC) in Colorado. Kalin is the absolute sweetest boy in the world. I adored him as a 5th grader, and now as an adult, I’m sure he is as sweet as ever. Please read this post from Nancy regarding an encounter she had at Ross Department Store las week.
From Nancy:
“It’s been a week since the incident at Ross clothing store. Kalin and I were shopping in the store for about a half hour. A women taps me on the shoulder and starts telling me in her loud voice! She says~You’re son is staring at me with her facial expressions like Kalin’s, but in an ugly way. I froze….in awareness of her hate. I responsed~ Lady…mind your own business. We locked eyes and she pointed at him again and said. You need to tell him to stop looking at me like that. Kalin was doing one of his shy eyes moves when he saw her, I think? Nothing hateful, nothing mean, nothing weird just my boy. This women next to me spoke out at her and said~ my god! He’s special needs! All our eyes were now connected. The hateful women then said~ you need to teach him better. I’m hot as a chili pepper. I raised my arm and called for security. The mean lady said why are you calling security? I said~to keep me from you and all your ugliness. She left quickly with words between her teeth. I was checking out now and looked back to the same rack where this started. I looked all over the store, I could not recognize her. I could not remember her face, just her eyes and her blinding words. I can see now that her face didn’t matter, just her words.” –Nancy
Sigh…with all of the awareness campaigns these days, where could this hate of special needs be stemming from in this woman?
In this whole story, I’m most thankful for the upstander; the stranger who stood up to the woman. I hope more people will see that it’s the upstanders who make the difference.
Nancy, you are so strong and awesome! Your work for your facebook group MomsConnected is wonderful. Keep up the great work.
