The local bakery had an evening showcasing art and music from the high school Benjamin attended two years ago. I asked him half a dozen times that day if he wanted to go, and he always said yes. Even when it was time to rip his eyes from the video he was watching for the hundredth rerun, Rescuers Down Under, I gave him the chance to skip it. 

 

"Do you want to go? We don't have to." I hinted that bowing out was an option.

 

He closed the computer and pushed back his chair. When we arrived the cafe was packed with teenagers. We squeezed past a few tables to get to the counter, and he ordered his usual. 

 

"Chocolate milkshake." We have gone over the etiquette of ordering food. Speak clearly, look them in the eyes. We found a couch near the back. 

 

"Hi Ben!" a pretty girl said to him. She introduced herself to me. "I'm Rachel. I'm a buddy at the school." They are the angels on earth who show up every blessed day to hang out with the Life Skills kids. She had nowhere to sit but I rejected the notion of squishing over to let her sit on the small couch with us. That would be awkward. Ben leaped up and with his long legs strode to another table. He waved widely at a girl with curly hair. 

 

"Hi." 

 

"Hi, Ben!" I recognized her as the one he double dated with to the prom. Her brother has special needs and she too is a buddy. 

 

Several other kids said hi to him, which proved to me that we were in a social situation where he knew more people than I did. After a few more songs I asked if he was ready to go. On the way out we passed people coming in and yet another person greeted him by name. Astonishing. 

 

How could these teenagers treat him with such genuine respect? It is not as if he can reciprocate in the ways that build friendship. He will never lend them lunch money, or offer them a ride. He cannot carry on a conversation longer than a shoestring, or help you with homework. Unless of course the assignment it to remember what happened in the twelfth scene of the Wizard of Oz, or to name the factors of 3,245. 

 

I read a story about a girl who orchestrated a way for her brother with autism to walk with her at graduation. He is nonverbal, yet she wanted nothing more than for him to be with her. The only time I can recall Micah being too angry to talk to me was when I refused to bring Benjamin to his high school graduation in Michigan. The notion that he wanted him there floored me. 

 

I am humbled by the generosity of the human spirit to give in relationships where there are inequities. Maybe I have Ben in my life for a different purpose than to have him give to me.