It was a pretty typical weekday evening. Audrey and I were running into the grocery to get a few things I needed to finish dinner that night. We were in the produce department picking out a tomato when a woman and her teenage daughter started talking to Audrey, They asked me how old she was and then went on about how cute and smiley she is. This isn't a rare occurrence. It happens everywhere we go, Not just because she's the cutest baby in the world, she is. But mostly because she loves to engage people. They glace at her and she instantly looks them directly in the eye and smiles. If that's not enough to get your attention she will then start yelling. I'm not kidding. She will yell at people she finds interesting until they pay attention to her. She's lucky she's cute. Any way, back to the produce department. Just as this woman and her daughter are about to walk away she leans in a little closer to me and says, "My sister has Down syndrome." I felt like I had been plunged into a tank of ice cold water.
It wasn't painful. It was shocking. In one short well meaning sentence I had gone from a woman in the grocery store with a cute baby to a woman in the grocery store with a baby who has Down syndrome. Obviously I know Audrey has Down syndrome, and obviously, I know that she has some of the physical characteristics of a child with Down syndrome. But when I look at Audrey and when I think of Audrey I just see Audrey. It was jolting to be confronted with the reality that people don't see her as a cute baby, but as a cute baby with Down syndrome.
I wish I could tell you that that was it. We checked out, got in the car. and drove home. And that while it was a shocking realization for me, that's the end of the story. But alas, life never just throws me for one loop.
I shake off the cold water and Audrey and I move on. We head to the dairy section. I noticed a woman and her school age daughter who are heading towards us looking a little extra long and hard at Audrey and I. I immediately assume that she obviously sees how adorable my baby is and then recognizes that I am incredibly out of shape and that she can snatch my baby and her and her 8 year old "daughter" will be able to out run me and steal my baby! I might have just read a human trafficking story I stumbled onto during my decent into a facebook rabbit hole.... BUT THEN just as I had brought myself back to reality and convinced myself that I was being ridiculous. The woman stops me. You read that right. SHE. STOPPED. ME. Just as I'm about to grab Audrey and wrap my body around her in a protective yet pitiful fetal position the woman says, "I know this is weird, but I know you and Audrey from facebook." Uh, fuck yeah it's weird. My facebook profile is PRI. VATE. and I've never seen this bitch before. She then goes on to tell me that she knew my husband in college and they are facebook friends and she just loves following our family, and Audrey is just the cutest thing and we are so inspirational. And just like that, I'm back in my dunk tank.
Inspirational? What the fuck? We are just parents. We are just a family. I mean, at least once a day I'm ready to throw one of my kids in the garbage. That's hardly something to aspire to. But as she's going on and introducing her daughter to my daughter and saying something about one time she thinks we might have met at a house party, It dawned on me. The rest of the world doesn't see up that way. They don't just see a family. They see a family that includes a child that's different. That somehow our life must be more difficult. So difficult in fact, that just existing long enough to post some pictures and a few status updates on facebook makes us inspirational. I thanked her and told her I'd tell my husband she said hi. I'm sure she thinks I'm a total weirdo. So much was going through my head. I had all I could do to breath through the tightening in my chest.
I know what you're thinking. "Wow, that was an emotional trip to the store. Surely, she got the rest of her groceries and headed home, waited until the kids were in bed, drank a bottle of wine, and then cried to her husband." About half of that is true. I'll give you a hint, it's the wine part.
Audrey and I grabbed her almond milk and headed to the check-out. As we are approaching the checkout lanes a teenager employee, sixteenish, looks at Audrey with a hint of recognition and says to me, "Your daughter is soooooo cute!"
"Thanks." I'm trying to be polite but I really just want to get the fuck out of this grocery store.
"We can get you right over here." she ads. It doesn't take me half a second to realize she has an intellectual disability. It was mild for sure. Most people would probably think she was just a little awkward, but once you've joined the "club" you start to notice more. Anyway. As another teenager, a guy I think, is checking me out and she's bagging my groceries, she starts talking about the Special Olympics. And once again, I'm back in that fucking tank of freezing cold water. I mean this whole trip hadn't lasted longer that thirty minutes. I wasn't sure I could shake off the cold and stop shivering long enough to have a coherent conversation. I was determined to grit my teeth and engage this girl about her experience. I asked her about the events she competed in. She proudly told me what she had already competed in, what she was competing in now, and what she wanted to compete in next. She told me about the Young Athletes program and encouraged me to sign Audrey up. She told me about some of the kids she competed with who has Down syndrome and how cool they were. I paid for my groceries, wished her well and we were on our way.
I'd love to tell you that our conversation was moving and enlightening and changed the way I viewed the previous conversations that revolved around Audrey disability. But that would be a dirty rotten lie. Honestly, at that point. I had all I could do to keep my shit together long enough to get to the car. I loaded everything, Audrey included, into the car, practically threw the cart into the coral, got into the driver's seat and just cried.
It was the first time I was forced to face a hard truth. That while I will always see Audrey as just Audrey, the rest of the world will always see her as Audrey. A person with Down syndrome.
