Mom was hurt when people couldn't stop staring at her kid with Down syndrome — until a stranger congratulated her
Sometimes, a stranger's kind words can mean the world to a person. Something similar happened with a mom who has a daughter with Down syndrome. The woman was used to people staring and whispering about her daughter in public places, but she never expected a stranger to come up and congratulate her in the kindest way. The mom was in tears and decided to share the incident on the internet. The mom, Pam De Almeida, posted the story in a now-deleted post on Facebook, per Huffpost.
"I sat in Tim Horton’s with my daughter as I do often," De Almeida wrote. Soon enough, two ladies sitting close to them started whispering and staring. The mom has experienced this quite a few times as her daughter, Sophia, was born with Down syndrome. "I sat there and watched these two women crane their necks to get a better look at her; completely oblivious to the fact that I was staring right back." The staring really "bothered" the mom that day. At that moment, a couple started approaching the mom and she thought, "Oh great! More people who want to take a closer look!" But what the man did next took her by surprise.
"The man greeted Sophia with a high five and a handshake and Sophia smiled and waved back. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, 'I have a story I would really like to share with you. But I am afraid I won't get through it without choking up,'" the mom recounted. She was curious now, so she encouraged the man to share the story with her. "This interaction was not what I was expecting." The man told her that he had watched the news last night and there was an interview with a mother who had recently given birth to a child with a "major disability." He added, "She was on the news defending her decision to keep her baby. She was defending her choice not to terminate despite her doctors encouraging her to do so."
"He said, 'The point is, you never know a person’s impact on the world. You can never know what a person is able to do unless you give them a chance'," De Almeida recounted. He gave the mom a last look and was about to turn away and leave when he said, "You are a beautiful person. Your daughter is beautiful. Congratulations!" The mom was immediately in tears after the man walked away from the place. She sat in the middle of a coffee shop, "crying into a paper napkin." De Almeida remarked, "That man was the first complete stranger to ever congratulate me on the birth of my daughter Sophia." She pointed out how he was the first complete stranger who recognized "her worth, her value, her beauty." The post concluded, "In a world where my daughter’s life is whispered about, where she is stared at, this man saw her importance."
Many people with Down syndrome, their siblings, and parents shared their views on how a person with the condition is treated in public in a conversation with Down Syndrome Australia. A boy whose brother has Down syndrome expressed, "Always be open to everyone and everything. Just give everybody a chance and be patient." A woman with the condition explained, "You never know what somebody will bring to the table. They could have something so, so special. It's right in front of you the entire time, and you don't see it."