My meeting with Ted...
Sitting in the restaurant waiting for my second shift of work that day, I sat at a counter seat next to two people, one of whom was obviously mentally challenged...
As I plugged my laptop in the young man said "Hi" but I noticed he did not speak otherwise.
As I sat there going through my emails and Facebook posts, I watched and listened, I noticed the woman with the man was astonishingly patient with him..."You have to turn off your ipad and let it charge." she said. "You can't keep looking at it, why didn't you plug it in last night? she said...
He would not speak but mumble and just sort of groan.
By these "words" the lady was able to tell what he was saying, and what he wanted even though there were no words coming from his mouth...
The man would chuckle a bit, laugh and she would say "what's so funny, what's funny?"
He would just mumble or stay quiet...
She would prompt him, and say "Ok, so what's your plan? what are you going to do?" very patiently I might add...the woman had the patience of Mother Teresa for sure.
"No, we talked about that yesterday, you can't do that." she said as he "said" something to her on his ipad,
the man would mumble "humppff" as if disgusted by her answer...
As the man went to the bathroom, I struck up a conversation with the woman and asked who she worked for, I told her "You have an astonishing amount of patience."
She smiled and said "Yeah, I grew up with an autistic brother, so, I'm used to being patient"
I spoke and said "My son has Aspergers syndrome, very high functioning autism, and has three scholarships
at CCU in Denver, very brilliant kid."
"Wow", she said, "that's awesome..."
"So who do you work for?" I asked.
"A company that hired me to work with disabled people like him" she said...
Again I encouraged her and told her how amazingly patient she was with this man....
I looked at the Tablet type instrument the man had and asked "What is that? does he use that all the time?, can he type on that?"
"Yes" she said, "it's an ipad, it has a special program on it and he speaks through it, he can communicate with his group."
"Wow" that's pretty impressive, so he can talk through the ipad?" I said...
"Yes" she said.
Just about that time the man came back from the restroom, and the Lady said "Tell him your name"
So the man pushed a button on his ipad and it voiced the name in an electronic voice "Ted"
"Wow amazing, that's pretty cool..." I said.
"Yeah, it's really useful"
I shook the mans hand and said "Hi Ted, nice to meet you"
Ted shook my hand and smiled and said hi and waved...
"Well, lets get going Ted", she said, "Nice meeting you"
"You too" I said, "Have a good day Ted" as he smiled at me...
And that was my meeting with Ted in the restaurant...
