To The Man At The Hampton Inn: Raising A Son With Special Needs

I have been thinking about you all day. You are haunting me. Your conversation with me and my Willie was more powerful then you will ever know. You have gotten under my skin. I don't know why you said it. I keep wondering about your motive. Regardless, you did damage today at that Breakfast Buffet.  You snuck into my fragile son's mind and made him feel like a freak. You will never understand how impossible that is to undo. You just should have kept your mouth shut!

Here's the part I cannot understand: Why did you say anything at all to my Willie?  You are about 25 years old, in town and in that hotel, for a wedding. I know you had to have grown up in school around people with Special Needs. Sure at first glance, Willie, standing about 5' 11" dressed in yellow plaid shorts with a light blue tank top, helping himself to food at the Breakfast Buffet, may have appeared to be your peer. But if you had looked carefully, you would have seen the other plates he had already filled with food. You would have seen his hands trembling as they do, either from his cocktail of meds or the Brain Damage itself. If you had really been paying attention, you would have seen me and him whisper fighting about the amount of food he was shoveling onto his 3 plates.

But why did you approach Willie in that rather aggressive posture you took and rudely ask: "Did you just put that French Toast back?" What was your point, as you obviously saw him do that. And then when he said "yes," for he doesn't lie, why did you say "That is wrong." Are you the French Toast Police? Do you suffer from such bad "Germaphobia" that you needed to lash out at my Willie.  Don't you think that if he was a typical 21 year old eating breakfast in the hotel lobby, as you assumed, he would have known that it is wrong to put food back from the buffet? So why did you ask him?

And it just kept getting better. For I lashed out at you. I told you that Willie has Special Needs and was on the verge of a Meltdown. A potential doozy. I truly can't remember what else I said as you really rocked my world. And you never apologized. In fact, it took you too long to walk away, as if you wanted to argue with me. Or worse, him.

Then you ate your breakfast at the next table for over 20 minutes while Willie crumbled. You had to have seen him. You had to have heard us talking and talking and talking all about you for the whole time you just sat there. You had to have heard him say, "I guess I just don't belong in hotels!" But you did nothing. Said nothing.

And what I know you didn't hear or see was the recurring conversation that lasted throughout the day about you. How I had to tell Willie over and over again that you just were not a nice person. That we both had to "let you go." And I know you didn't see me cry after I dropped Willie off at camp, which is by the way, where I was taking him that day. The tears I rarely let fall just kept coming and coming. You helped me shed them.

And you certainly have no idea how your 2 sentences this morning to Willie are embedded in his self now forever. For his memory is as sharp as a tack. And lately, as Willie is maturing, he is thoughtfully and constantly wondering why he has to have Special Needs. And we work so hard to help Willie see his strengths and gifts despite the Special Needs. But then someone like you comes along...