A Compelling Encounter

Jim and I both noticed her. She was a few inches shorter than Charlie, shiny black hair in a page boy cut. She had a turquoise blouse and pants of a different shade of blue, and so beautiful, something about her big dark eyes and her perfect features. She moved quickly into the room, not so much running as rushing in with deep reserves of energy. She held her arms at a stiff angle with the elbows bent briefly, and then, a sound, a squawk. When I looked in her direction again, she was slapping her head.

We were in the lower level of a church in central Jersey, at a session for a ministry for special needs children. We got there over a half-hour before the ministry started and everyone was lining up for lunch when we entered. Charlie hunched his head down and his shoulders up and peeled off the nametag I’d just placed on his shirt. There was sushi and he wanted a lot of that and some rice and pink slices of pickled ginger. After eating, I stood behind Charlie as two young men demonstrated the steps for a line dance; Charlie swayed from side to side, picking up his feet in rhythm, laughing and echoing some of the instructions: “Now straddle! Tap the right foot!” After rehearsing a few times, everyone was supposed to walk in a circle while doing the steps. Charlie walked a few steps and, finding himself under the loudspeaker, went to pace (with a smile) by the food. A kindly volunteer tried to grab his hand and pull him back into the circle and Charlie briefly acceded, then went back (grinning) to his pacing and occasionally took a step outside the door.

Two women held the girl’s arms and were sort of walking-pulling her in the circle. Sometimes she made the same high-pitched noises, or ran back and forth with limbs full of energy, or aimed her hands at her head again. Her mother was pushing a stroller with a baby and, when I asked, I learned that the girl’s father had gone to his home country and taken another of the girl’s siblings.

I drifted by Jim who’d noted the girl too and said, “Of all the kids here, she’s like Charlie.” Jim noted her restless energy and at different times we both found ourselves beside her and said hello. She reached for my hand and held it, her grip strong.

Charlie asked to go to the car several times, and shrugged and paced or looked around when we told him we’d be staying for a few more minutes. I was told that the girl attends a county program of the sort we’d wanted not to place Charlie in. And Jim and I both agreed, there was something about her, deeply and richly compelling, that we hope to see her again—-a girl with challenges so like Charlie’s, and (also like Charlie) a child whom one hopes to get to know a lot better.