Day 268 to 270 – “Richard … Happy?!”

(Shared with you with the permission of Harry's parents)

One of the great joys in my life is giving respite to families with autistic children. One of my links is Harry and I have been with him for 3 years and he has become like a little brother to me.

One of Harry’s behaviours involves taking pictures. He always has a camera with him and he constantly makes a pictorial record of the day we have together. He also likes to take photos of himself by holding the camera away from his face with one hand and pointing the camera back at himself … he follows the same process when taking photos of himself with his family/friends.

Unfortunately Harry has a tendency to pick out unsuspecting members of the public wanting to have his picture taken with them. Whilst bowling today he picked out a teenager in a group. I stopped Harry and could see, by the response of the teenagers, that this was not a safe thing for him to do. So I had to be firm with Harry by telling him ‘No!” … Harry wasn’t pleased with me.

We arrived at our booth in the bowling alley and Harry put his arm over my shoulder and took a picture of us both. He examined the digital photo and, seeing that I was not smiling, said, “Richard … Happy?”

He took another photograph, this time with us both smiling … I think we are friends again … J

A few more acts of kindness achieved recently include:

6 x Gave cash to a charity
31 x Proactively ‘gave-way’ to other drivers
1 x Picked up rubbish in the neighbourhood
2 x Gave respite care to a family by looking after Harry
3 x Held the door open for someone

Sub total: 43
Running total: 2835

Target: 3000+ in 12months

Commenced 30^thNovember 2011

Motivation for ‘’My Ten-a-day’

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, “I made a difference for that one.”