Parents of children with disabilities get used to strangers staring at their family. Though it happens all the time, it never gets easy to watch someone gawk at your baby.

Pamela De Almeida is the mother of a little girl named Sophia, who has Down syndrome.

On her blog Slice of Life, Pamela has been writing about disliking the way her daughter is treated by others. She hates it when people stare and openly whisper about Sophia right in front of their family. Worst of all, Sophia is old enough now that she’s started picking up on the way others treat her as well.

Recently, Pamela took to her blog to talk about an experience she had at a coffee shop that left her in tears.

“Two ladies sitting near us started to stare and whisper,” she wrote. “This is a pretty frequent occurrence for us you see; because my daughter Sophia was born with Down Syndrome. I sat there and watched these two women crane their necks to get a better look at her; completely oblivious to the fact that I was staring right back. Today it bothered me. It really bothered me.”

Just as Pamela felt like she was about to lose her temper, an older couple approached her. The mother initially feared the worst, thinking to herself, “Oh great! More people who want to take a closer look!”

However, the man did not say a word to Pamela and instead walked right up to Sophia and gave her a high five! Sophia smiled to the man sweetly as he turned to Sophia with tears in his eyes.

“I have a story I would really like to share with you. But I am afraid I won’t get through it without choking up,” he said.

Pamela could not believe what the man had to say to her.

“He told me that he had watched the news last night,” she recalled. “There was an interview with a mother who had recently given birth to a child with a major disability. She was on the news defending her decision to keep her baby. She was defending her choice NOT to terminate despite her doctors encouraging her to do so.”

She said that the man explained that nobody can ever know the potential impact that their child can have on the world.

“You can never know what a person is able to do unless you give them a chance,” she recounted. “He looked at me just before he turned to walk away and said, ‘You are a beautiful person. Your daughter is beautiful. Congratulations!'”

Pamela could not help but burst into tears right in the middle of the coffee shop. This was the first time a stranger had ever complimented her on the birth of Sophia!

“He was the first complete stranger to recognize her WORTH. Her VALUE. Her BEAUTY,” she wrote. “In a world where my daughter’s life is whispered about, where she is stared at, this man saw her IMPORTANCE. What a wonderful reminder that every human being, no matter how small, has true worth and value. Let’s encourage ourselves and those around us to recognize everyone’s unique beauty every day.”

Children are blessings and are worthy of our unconditional love. Please share this story with your family and friends.