I was in Disneyland with my son, Daniel, who suffers from autism. He was 7 back then. Our whole family – my wife and our three other children – went on a vacation.
Suddenly, Daniel had a fit of hysteria, we don’t even know why. My wife and I decided, that I would take our son and return to the hotel on a bus, and she would stay in the park with the children.
He wouldn’t stop crying…We were waiting for a bus, and he kept crying.
Then we got on the bus filled to capacity, and he kept crying.
As the bus was traveling with a lot of stops, before reaching our bus stop, the cry continued.
My son looks totally “normal”. For many people on the bus, he looked like a screaming or a spoiled child, who hadn’t got the toy he wanted so badly. So, literally in a few minutes, his cry drew other passengers’ attention.
To my great shame, I lost self-control because of my own son. I was confused, and angry, and felt deceived by God because I wasn’t able to enjoy my vacation because of the damned illness of my son. Then I realized, I wanted him to not exist…
I asked myself, how would the life be, if I didn’t have to bear this curse.
The reaction of other passengers was getting more and more intense. And the man sitting before us turned to face me. I was getting ready for a flood of advice about how to raise a child properly, but he calmly asked: “Is he okay?”
“He has autism”, I answered.
Then the man said: “It’s okay, don’t worry”. And he smiled.
That’s all.
Suddenly all the anger inside of we was gone, and I was ashamed of the thought I had a minute ago. At that moment, I didn’t care what other people were thinking.
My son was once again a gift from God.
I will never forget that man, nor his small, simple act of kindness and understanding. I do believe he was the guardian angel of my son and, why not, mine too.
