"He's beautiful"

"He's beautiful", the stranger said to me. I had already pegged her as a good sort, seeing her kind reaction to the sight of my gangly 21 year old son crouched down to examine the children's DVDs on the bottom shelf at our local Value Village. He was gleefully thrusting "Barbie" DVDs my way, looking for that apparently endlessly entertaining reaction of professed horror they elicit from me. She was not looking askance at him, or me, or moving away uneasily, as people sometimes do. But "beautiful"?

There's no denying that as a child my son was physically beautiful, with masses of platinum curls and sprinkling of freckles on his snub nose, but "beautiful" seems an unlikely adjective for him now that he's fully grown (with jeans that never seem to fit properly, a total indifference to his physical appearance except for the logo on his tshirt, and rather odd facial hair). The woman in the store, however, clearly recognized something about him - and, in fact, as we chatted she told me that she has Asperger's. She talked a bit about the challenges she faces and the supports she receives, and when she again said "he's beautiful" I knew she was acknowledging not just his apparent sweet nature and his enthusiasms that is never diminished by the judgement of others, but the challenges he has faced and the value that should be placed on people like him (and her).