At 2AM Sunday morning my youngest brother (who is no longer diagnosable as on the autism spectrum, but still has--what he calls--a 'spicy' personality! In other words, he's still kinda weird!) heard a loud banging on his apartment door. It was the police. There had been a robbery and they believed he was involved.
My brother promised he didn't do it, and then allowed them to check out his apartment. Though I'm sure they found single guy living alone mess, what they didn't find were the stolen items. So they asked him to please stick around town in case they had any questions and let him get back to bed. I'm sure he didn't fall back to sleep!
He called me (at a decent hour, I applaud him for waiting until he knew I'd be up!) to recount the event and share his fear. "They probably think I'm suspicious because they caught me being silly one night when the library was closed and I was pretending I wanted to get in." I added, "There was also that time they caught you sitting in and pretending to drive that truck at the car dealership."
The woman who had been robbed was pretty sure my brother didn't do it. She had some other thoughts on who it probably was. At this point is seems that my brother is out of any danger, and I'm absolutely impressed with how he handled the ordeal!
I'm not upset with the police for assuming it was my baby brother. He has, by his own admission, drawn suspicion to himself. And I fully understand that others are uncomfortable around a person who's habits and choices are so foreign to them, and that they feel nervous around such unpredictability. I love that they spoke to my brother, and not me or my mom. I love that his oddness is normal enough to not warrant a call to his 'caregiver'.
I love lots of things that came out of this pretty scary and potentially awful scenario. Mostly, I love my brother for handling it well and seeing his own role in the game.
Mostly, I love my brother!
Hugs, smiles and love!!
