This morning as I was walking alone in my neighborhood, a young man was walking ahead of me, with his father, arm in arm. I sensed that the young man had some sort of developmental disability, because they looked like Charlie and Jim walking, if Charlie was a teenager.
They stopped to look at something and I started to pass them. The young man turned toward me. I could see that he had Down syndrome. We both smiled. He said hello and I said hello back. His father had an all-too-familiar look on his face, a combination of fear that the stranger would not be kind to his child as well as fear that his child would do something to make the stranger uncomfortable. Of course, I instantly wanted to put them at ease and tell him about Charlie but that’s never an easy topic to bring up with a complete stranger, and I didn’t want to make the son feel self-conscious. It’s always so much easier to have those encounters when I actually have Charlie with me. So we just exchanged pleasantries and I kept walking.
Then the young man says from behind me, “I like your purse.” I stopped, turned around, and said, “Thank you! It’s from India.” At this point, the dad looks increasingly uncomfortable at the son’s insistence to stay and engage me in conversation, shifting his weight from leg to leg, looking around for an exit. I know that feeling very well.
The son said, “I love Indians!” I smiled, charmed, and said, “So do I! And I love Indian food too!”
He said “Do you love huggable Indians?” At which point his dad is totally stressed out, barking, “OK, OK!” to his son.
Then the son says, “Can I have a hug?”
I said, “Sure!”
Before I could open my arms, the father jumps in, clearly dying inside (but probably also wondering why this lady is not acting the least bit uncomfortable right now), and the father exclaims, “Three second hug! Three second hug!” This is also familiar to me. Charlie has several “catch phrases” that Team Charlie uses to redirect negative behaviors. One of our big ones is “Wait, wait, wait!”
The young man and I shared a three-second hug. To the father’s visible surprise, I followed the Hug Protocol without missing a beat: we all counted out loud during the hug: “One, two, THREE!”
It was a really good hug, and completely innocent and appropriate. He just wanted a hug from the nice lady with the beautiful, Indian purse.
I turned to his father, mustering all of the kindness that I possibly could with my eyes, and said, almost whispering, “My son gets help with learning how to give three-second hugs from The Arc.”
I could see a look of relief wash over him as I smiled and said goodbye.