Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs by Jack Canfield Page B

even said “hello” to the homeless people. She asked what they were doing there, and they told her. I’ve never asked because I don’t talk to strangers. One man on his cell phone stopped in his tracks and told her not only his name and age, but also his occupation and what he was going to do with his girlfriend over the weekend. As he strode off after Jessica’s grilling, I heard him say into the cell phone, “I have no idea who that was. Just a little kid.” Just a little kid . . . who doesn’t know better than to talk to strangers.
    Later, we were at a corner waiting for the light to change, and Jessica greeted everyone there. Over the top of Jessica’s head, I met the glance of a casually dressed man with curly brown hair. “She’s autistic, isn’t she?” he said to me, with a directness that took my breath away. After all, he was a perfect stranger. I put my hand protectively on Jessica’s shoulder. “Yes,” I said. This is the kind of encounter I dislike, but I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
    His face smoothed into a look of compassion. “I work with children who have autism,” he explained. “It’s a challenge, isn’t it?” I felt something inside me weaken: a wall, perhaps, I never even knew I had built. Because I expected people to be indifferent to me, or to be judgmental, I never expected kindness. Not like Jessica, who always does.
    The light changed. “She has a good mom,” the brown-haired man said simply, and walked away. I caught my breath. If he had thrust a bouquet of gardenias in to my hands, I would not have been as surprised. His words were like an offering, a gift, for which he wanted nothing in return.
    “That was Mark,” Jessica said. “We know Mark now.”
    “We sure do,” I said, and smiled.
    Jennifer Lawler
     
    Jennifer Lawler is a writer who lives in the Midwest with her adorable daughter, Jessica, and their lazy mutt, Jazmine. Visit Jennifer’s website at www.jenniferlawler.com .
     

On the Inside
     
W hat we see depends mainly on what we look for.
John Lubbock
     
    I look like a monster. During a routine root canal last week, the dentist accidentally tore a blood vessel in my face, and the result is that the left side of my face is black and purple and swollen from eyebrow to throat.
    While painful, the worst part of this mishap is the deep embarrassment at having my face look so monstrous. I hadn’t realized the shock of my bruises until my neighbor dropped by and literally jumped off my porch at the sight of my face, clutching at her heart and shrieking involuntarily.
    “It’s not even a good story,” I told her, and explained about the dentist and the torn blood vessel. After a brief visit, I said good-bye to her, knowing she had never paid attention to our conversation because my face was so distracting. I was disheartened and embarrassed.
    The embarrassment grew more deeply rooted when I took my son to kindergarten the next day. Upon seeing my face (which I thought was cleverly concealed by my hair swept over my face and the sunglasses I wore indoors), Noah’s teacher gasped. Expletives spewed forth, causing me to laugh, and she to slap a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she apologized for her involuntary cursing. “You look like someone beat the life out of you!” I explained what had happened and literally ran to my car, heading home to hide from all human contact.
    For several days, I avoided contact with people other than my family, and my first foray into public in search of a video led to new humiliation and had me determined not to leave home again.
    “Mommy, look at that lady’s face!” I heard the little boy’s voice behind me, and the heat rose in my cheeks as I instantly knew I was the freak show he pointed at. “Don’t stare,” I heard the mother whisper as she yanked the boy out of the video store so he wouldn’t have to see the scary-faced woman. I drove home, crawled into bed, and pulled the covers