The Power of 26 Letters

My son's message of support may have changed a stranger's life

- Susan Baker

AFTER A SLEEPY Saturday morning on my son Andrew's 15th birthday, I whisk him off to a shoe store near our home in Toronto to get a pair of sandals. We know the exact style and size he wants, and we time the trip to arrive right when the store opens. Andrew is nonspeaking autistic and prefers to go shopping when it's not busy.

"Size 41 of those black slip-on sandals, please," I tell the two clerks at the store when we arrive.

Andrew slips his socked feet into the shoes with no protest or head banging

the effort of using the letterboard-the the concentration, regulation, the transcribing the store clerks are quiet, watching. Andrew points to each letter, one by one: "Thank you." And that's that.

When we look up, they are wide-eyed and awestruck. I smile and turn to leave.

One of the clerks, a man about my age, speaks up: "Um, can I ask you ...

what is that? How does he ... what are you using there? Because I have a brother-in-law... and he doesn't talk." "Oh! This is an alphabet board that Andrew uses to communicate," I reply.

"Right, Andrew? We've practised it for years. It's quite incredible, as we just didn't know Andrew was so 'in there.

We didn't even know this tool existedit's relatively uncommon. It's changed everything for us, for our family, for Andrew." This is what happens when we show up-in all of who we are-in our light, our strengths and our "deficiencies." We invite others into our humanness, and we allow them to share theirs.