So I wrote about struggles last night and choosing kindness. I thought I’d share an example of kindness we witnessed on Thanksgiving. This year, like every other year, we headed to my brother’s in Boca for Thanksgiving dinner. This time it would be our family, Richard and his wife along with a Richard’s dad and his partner.

Shortly after we got there, I noticed an individual I didn’t recognize. I thought perhaps he came with Richard’s dad and his partner. This young man was non-verbal autistic and was plugging his ears due to the noise. He walked around the island looking at the food. Suddenly, he put his hands into the brownie tray and grabbed a handful of brownies and ate them.

After he finished the brownies, he moved on to the chips and dip. At this point, several of us are horrified that whoever’s he’s with isn’t stopping him from eating potato chips and French onion dip directly from the container with a spoon. Eventually, my brother and sister-in-law figured it out. It was there new neighbor’s son, who is non-verbal.

My brother walked over to his house to talk to his parents. Their only response to my brother was that they had told him not to go inside the house. Obviously, this didn’t stop him from entering the house. My brother came back into the house to escort him out. However, before Jon walked the surprise visitor back to his house, he put the dip and bowl of chips on a plate for him to take home.

While my brother and his wife could have raised hell over their neighbor walking in and helping himself to their food on Thanksgiving, they didn’t. They chose to treat him with kindness and dignity. Unfortunately, his parents don’t supervise him very well. This story could have easily had a different ending. After all, this is Florida where people shoot first and ask questions later.