OF course, I got help and over time I came to find out that I was a real person and I could do and be anyone I wanted to be. By this time I was in my 40′s.

In my 50′s I found my way to Bethesda Lutheran Communities where I work with Independent living persons with a number of different intellectual delays. These people have been responsible for teaching me what “Normal” means.

“Normal” is being the best person you can be. It has nothing to do with comparing yourself to others, with what job you have or don’t have, with what you look like, wear, or own and it certainly has nothing to do with a definition in a dictionary. They just want to be the best that they can be as a person.

Life is so much easier that way. They do not compare themselves to others.

Now I can’t say that every person I serve has arrived at this state, but those who have are the happiest people I know. Oh, they still wish they could have different things, they want to go places, they want to marry and have children but they are happy with who they are and they will work to see if they can get to the place they want to be but they do it because they want it not because someone else has it and they want to be like them.

I am blessed to be able to help enable these people toward being the best they can be and the gift I have received in doing this work is that I am happier than I have ever been by just working to be the best person I can be. That is what I believe “normal” is and so do the people that I serve.

Waiter hailed as hero after standing up for boy with Down syndrome Lisa Flam, NBC News
A Houston waiter who refused to serve a customer last week did not lose his job. Instead, Michael Garcia is being celebrated for standing up for a little boy with Down syndrome, with people stopping to shake his hand at the restaurant where regulars are made to feel like part of the family. Five-year-old Milo Castillo has lots of friends in preschool and loves to give hugs.
One of those regulars, Kim Castillo, was at Laurenzo’s Prime Rib in Houston last week when several waiters stopped by her table. Her 5-year-old son, Milo, who has Down syndrome and whose speech is a little delayed, was showing off his new words and talking about his birthday the week earlier. A family sitting nearby asked to move away from the Castillo family’s table, and a man in the group made a disparaging remark about Milo.
“I heard the man say, ‘Special needs children need to be special somewhere else,’” Garcia told NBC affiliate KPRC-TV in. “My personal feelings took over, and I told him, ‘I’m not going to be able to serve you, Sir.’”
“‘How could you say that?’” Garcia said he asked the man before he left the restaurant with his party. “‘How could you say that about a beautiful 5-year-old angel?’” Castillo, who noticed the family move but didn’t hear the remark, was grateful when she later found out what Garcia had done, even more so when she learned that the other family were regular customers as well.
“I was impressed that somebody would step out of their own comfort level and put their job on the line as well as to stand up for somebody else,” she said. “I know Michael did it from his heart, and from reacting to the situation. I don’t think he stopped and thought about what he was doing.” Of the other family, she said, “It’s sad that they’re ignorant.”
Castillo, 40, wrote in an online post that she has been taking Milo out to eat since he was born, and said her son, her only child with husband Eric, is better behaved than most children and was not misbehaving that night. Milo, age 5: His mom takes him out to restaurants frequently and says he’s very well behaved.
“Was he loud?” she wrote. “Maybe a little in the moment, but honestly, the adults at our table were three times louder than he was. … If he had been obnoxious, which like any other 5-year-old he can be, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the family asking to move.”
Garcia, who has worked at the restaurant for about two years, knew the Castillos, and has his own special way of greeting Milo. “Normally when they arrive, I pick him up at the door and carry him to the table,” Garcia told KPRC. As news of Garcia’s action spread across the Internet, with praise for him on the restaurant’s Facebook page and elsewhere, customers have been seeking out Garcia. “The business has just been huge,” said Candace Roberts, the Castillos’ regular server at Laurenzo’s, adding that patrons are mentioning Garcia’s story. “People are coming in to shake his hand and eat at our restaurant and loving it.”
Castillo said she has never heard anybody say something negative about her son, a boy who hates fighting, loves to hug and has lots of preschool chums, both with and without Down syndrome. But she said she has seen kids and adults stare at him or take “second and third glances,” and has witnessed parents pull their kids away from Milo on the playground. “It’s just ignorance,” she said. “Kids aren’t going to catch anything from him.”
She hopes that the story of Garcia’s kindness will lead to greater tolerance for others, especially for those like Milo, who look different than other kids. “It’s just impressive to see the outpouring of love and support,” she said, adding that she hopes the story encourages “people to stand up for other people who can’t stand up for themselves and that it’s worth taking the risk.” “Maybe next time they’ll think twice before they utter those words or say something derogatory about somebody else,” she said.