Around the age of 6, I can remember going to the local grocer with my mother. It was a community store, most likely family-owned. The only shoppers were from the surrounding area, and most people were pleasantly cordial. I distinctly remember an older woman with her twin sons. Everyone would smile at them, but she seemed more focused on them than the onlookers.
She always wore a dress and her coif of gray curls were ever so neatly placed on her head. Her sons were not very young. They seemed to be in their 40’s or 50’s. They hung onto her every word. She still dressed them alike. They wore the same glasses, jackets, plaid shirts, and khaki pants. She would walk them through the store, explaining different things and teaching them how to use their money to pay for their purchases.
I saw them almost weekly. It brought a bit of curious excitement to witness the care that she displayed. She didn’t have to tell me they were her sons, I could see it in her gentleness toward them. Then one day, I saw the electronic door open. I looked up and saw the twins. I peered past them to see their mother, but she was not there.
The twins entered the store together and walked through the routine that their mother had shown them many times before. I noticed the onlookers as their expressions changed. There was a sadness in the air, even from the clerks. A woman asked the cashier, “Where is their mother?”
The cashier explained that she had passed, and they were now on their own. The woman teared up a bit. I wasn’t the only one who had watched the gentle woman with her twins. Oblivious to the mood in the store, the twins paid for their items and walked side by side out of the electronic door.
Week after week, I saw the twins arrive through that door, following their mother’s routine. I became aware of something special. I saw those onlookers, who had watched the gentle woman, step forward to help the twins. Shoppers helped them reach for items, get their cart unstuck, and offer them coupons. That gentle woman put the example on display for all of us to see how to care for her boys after she was gone.
Her example was not wasted. It would be more than twenty years later, that her lesson would guide me through a difficult moment. My son, at the age of 3, was diagnosed with Autism. I had never heard that word before, but I remembered seeing an example of a good mother to special needs children. I cannot thank her for the impact that she made on an impressionable young girl, but I can do my best to follow in her footsteps. I take my son everywhere. People in the community watch us as we walk through the stores, choosing items, and paying for our purchases. He even knows how to use the U-scan.
I know they are watching, because of the smiles and comments on how well he is doing. We frequent the same stores, so the clerks have come to know us. Several of them even leave their lines just to give him a high five. I know that there will be a day when I will no longer be with him. Hopefully, that day is a long way off. My goal is not only that he would be independent enough to do things on his own. Similar to the example I saw so many years ago, I hope that we are viewed in like manner. I hope the young children will remember us if they, someday, are faced with parenting a child with special needs. Perhaps I can put on display how to be patient, gentle, and focused. An example was presented to me, without knowing that I would one day retrieve the lessons I once learned from it. That gentle woman made it acceptable. She placed the possibility in my consciousness and permitted me to persevere.
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