I am that Mum
I am that Mum
The one with that child,
And when you look up
I see your fake smile.
You don't say a word
Your eyes give you away,
I've seen it before
"I'm sorry..." they say.
For you see a burden
An unfortunate fate,
Where I see a gift
And the hearts that have changed.
You've not been a witness
When I've shed happy tears,
Over every small milestone
And each conquered fear.
You've not seen the beauty
Of the journey, fought hard,
We began with so little
But we've travelled so far.
It's an uphill battle
But it's worth every step,
Would I do it again?
My answer is yes.
I am that mum
And this is my child,
And he's so much more
Than the label you've filed.
Please give him a chance
It's the least you can do,
And I won't be surprised
When he wins your heart too.
Author Unknown
A Truckers Story.
I try not to be biased, but
I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counsellor assured me that
he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally
handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my
customers would react to Stevie.
He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued
speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker
customers because truckers don't generally care who serves tables as long as
the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.
The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college
kids travelling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their
silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded "truck
stop germ" the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who
think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those
people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the
first few weeks.
I shouldn't have worried. After
the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger,
and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck
stop mascot.
After that, I really didn't care what
the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in
blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his
attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its
place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with
the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table
until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the
background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining
room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and
carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the
table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was
watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride
in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please
each and every person he met.
Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled
after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security
benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker,
who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between
the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the
difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a
group home. That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning
last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.
He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in
his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often
have heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a
good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work
in a few months.
A ripple of excitement ran through the
staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in
recovery, and doing fine.
Frannie, the head waitress, let out a
war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.
Belle Ringer, one of our regular
trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four
doing a victory shimmy beside his table.
Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look.
He grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked.
"We just got word that Stevie is
out of surgery and going to be okay."
"I was wondering where he was.
I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?"
Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and
the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed:
"Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK," she said.
"But I don't know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the
bills.. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is."
Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the
rest of her tables. Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace
Stevie and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own
tables that day until we decided what to do.
After the morning rush, Frannie walked
into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny
look on her face.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I didn't get that table where
Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony
Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,"
she said. "This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup."
She handed the napkin to me, and three
$20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big,
bold letters, was printed "Something For Stevie".
"Pony Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I
told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and
Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this." She handed me
another paper napkin that had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on its
outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me
with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: "truckers."
That was three months ago. Today
is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work.
His placement worker said he's been
counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't matter at
all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making
sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job
was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I
then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day
back.
Stevie was thinner and paler, but
couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back
room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.
"Hold up there, Stevie, not so
fast," I said. I took him and his mother by their arms.
"Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast
for you and your mother is on me!" I led them toward a large corner booth
at the rear of the room.
I could feel and hear the rest of the
staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing
over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join
the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was
covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked
on dozens of folded paper napkins. "First thing you have to do,
Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I tried to sound stern.
Stevie looked at me, and then at his
mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had "Something for
Stevie" printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills
fell onto the table.
Stevie stared at the money, then at all
the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or
scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. "There's more than
$10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking
companies that heard about your problems. "Happy Thanksgiving,"
Well, it got real noisy about that
time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as
well.
But you know what's funny? While
everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a
big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the
table.
Best worker I ever hired.
Plant a seed and watch it grow.
If you shed a tear, hug yourself,
because you are a compassionate person.
