This fellow saw my brother seemingly staring at him, and in turn, glared at us. We had mortally offended him. At first I paid him no attention. He would not let up and kept glaring as we ate, until I looked up and gave him the scariest face I could summon.
With a grunt of disgusted impatience, he got up and left. Part of me had wanted to call him back, slap him with a white glove and challenge him to a duel with plastic fast-food cutlery. But I did not. My brother was happy with his chocolate ice-cream sundae, and everything was alright again.
The 9th Step
A teacher from Jan’s old school once recounted to my mother how vexed she had gotten when she witnessed a boy with Down’s Syndrome, getting glares and stares and being pushed about in the train. The boy’s mother had been exhausted and unable to do anything about it. This teacher had gone up to the nasty bullies and gave them what for.
She said even thinking about it made her furious. It touched me how she had stood up for the child. Special education teachers have a fierce kind of commitment and devotion to these children. They go the distance.
Sadly, bullies are everywhere. They appear even in public toilets.
My brother needs to be accompanied to the toilet, and there are not always special “handicapped” cubicles outside the regular Ladies and Gents. So I have to bring him into the Ladies. Some people come in, see my brother waiting for a cubicle and instantly grasp the situation. They kindly leave us be.
Some, however, are relentless upholders of propriety. A special needs boy entering the Ladies when he really needs to go to the loo is an abomination, a corruption of virtues, a crime of the worst kind. So they act for the greater good.
For courtesy’s sake, I suppose, I used to apologise. The exchanges would go like this:
Person: “He’s a boy. He shouldn’t be here.”
Me: “I’m so sorry, my brother is autistic, and needs to be accompanied to the toilet, and I can’t go into the Gents after all, and the handicap toilets are not separated here, so I have no choice. I’m so sorry once again.”
Person: “Well, don’t do it anymore. How inconsiderate. Next time, get him to go to the toilet at home.”
After some time, the exchanges evolved into something like this:
Person: “He’s a boy.”
Me: “I know.”
Person: “This is a ladies’ toilet.”
Me: “I know.”
Person: “Why did you bring him in here?”
Me: “Try using your common sense.”
I do wonder now and again if I should just keep quiet when this happens. I should apologise, then apologise again. I should listen to the reproaches and the sermons and the foul remarks, and nod my head before apologising yet again. Someone once said, ‘They have a point.’ It is certainly true.
In an ideal world, I managed to change the bullies’ hearts and attitudes with my sincere apologies and explanations. They are touched by my earnestness and the innocence in my brother’s eyes, shed a few tears, then spiritedly encourage us to live life to the fullest.
It is a fairy tale that has not yet happened in other places, much less in public toilets where folks are grumpy.
The 10th Step
Once, Jan and I came across a group of girls who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen. We were queueing for the bus and they were just ahead of us in line.
Jan stared at them. Or, more precisely, he was hungry and stared at the packets of food they were holding. It is difficult to direct his attention elsewhere if he is not inclined to listen.
The girls misunderstood and started whispering among themselves, throwing dirty looks at Jan.
I cannot even begin to describe how much I did not feel like apologising then. Very far from it.
At any rate, my brother and I were both tired and Jan was hungry, and I was weary of all the nastiness that was going on. There was only their ignorance and lack of powers of observation to blame. So I merely looked at them until I caught their eye, then raised my brows.
When I did so, they elbowed each other. Then they darted glances at me and my brother in turn. They looked a little uncertain, then turned round to face front stiffly and did not look back again.
The 11th Step
Once, during a visit to the clinic, Jan and I had entered the lift when a doctor stepped in as well. Seeing my brother holding onto my arm, she smiled at us.
‘Is he your brother?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘So you’re a good sister then,’ she said warmly.
I was embarrassed and only managed a kind of doltish smile by way of response.
She reached her floor, gave us a parting smile, and left me bemused.
I do not think I am a good sister. I have disagreements and quarrels with my brother. At times I can be horribly selfish. I am a normal sibling.
Among the siblings of special children I have come into contact with was one David, from the United States. His brother has Asperger’s Syndrome. David was twenty-seven when I spoke with him. His brother was some four years or so younger than him. He had admitted at the time that living with his brother could be very trying, sometimes even embarrassing. He said that even at his age, it was difficult to deal with the fact that his parents paid more attention to his younger brother than to him.
At the time, it had irked me when he said that.
You’re twenty-seven years old, not a child, I had thought. Start growing up.
However, in hindsight, it had been unreasonable of me to think that of him. I was not in his shoes, no matter how similar our situations were. I may have had the advantage of more support from my parents, and in turn am able to pass on that support to my brother.
It was
