Wise Guys...

We were talking yesterday at my parents about the strange other worldliness of children with special needs….I told my nieces that sometimes you have a “Twilight Zone” moment with children with special needs because they open their mouths and say something or do something you aren’t expecting and suddenly your hearing, in your head, the theme from “The Twilight Zone….”

Example:

Almost as drawn into one anothers vision by something no one else can see, a young man walks up to Booga in a grocery store today. Clearly, this person has a pronounced disability. I can’t really tell what kind of mental disability, but I can tell by his gait and by his language that he is mentally disabled.
He comes up to Booga and says, “Hello.”
The two boys extend their hands and shake, just like they were old friends who are meeting at a baseball game…
Booga says, “Hello…Do you go to the same school I do?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then.”
“It was nice to see you.”
“I will see you later.”


It was a brief exchange.
Later during dinner, Booga would tell me the name of the boy…
I don’t know all his classmates because they come and go…

However, it was an exchange that I would have never thought to see take place.
Not from where we started; not from a child that didn’t even call me “Mom.” I never thought I would see him acknowledging a classmate with a handshake in a grocery store…Ever.

When the wise men came to visit the baby Jesus with his mother Mary, it is said in the bible that when they set their gifts down and left that Mary pondered all these things in her heart…




I know what that means…