On a recent trip to a Target store, Alethea Mshar, who is a runner and a writer, returned to the parking lot with her son to find a young man taking a photo of her vehicle. Upon spotting her, the man ran away, but Mshar knows why he took the sneaky picture.
She has stickers on her vehicle that represent her participation in 13.1k and 25k running events. They are placed next to the disabled parking badge she has for her son, Ben. Since Mshar did not know the identity of the person taking the photo, she wrote an open letter to him, which was published on the Huffington Post.
In the letter, she acknowledged that seeing the stickers together like that probably seemed ironic, but her son was the one with the disabilities. While Ben can walk, he can only do so for short distances, hence the need for a handicapped parking space and badge.
Mshar added that disabled children are a qualification for a disabled parking badge, and that she does not use it when her son is not with her. She concluded by saying she regretted not being able to talk with the picture taker, but she hopes he will think before doing such a thing again.
The post received a large number of supportive comments and stands as an excellent lesson about thinking before passing judgment on a stranger.