Subtitle: Kids can be cruel, especially to peers who they perceive as different.
But for her cousin, Rebecca Lyn, Hallee Sorenson would have remained as anonymous as must have felt when the picture in the Facebook post below was taken a year ago.
The subject of the photo, which could easily have been the stuff of an Edward Hopper painting, sits alone in a bowling alley adorned with birthday balloon and wishes. She stares down glumly at a cake. The occasion was Hallee’s 18th birthday, but none of the classmates she invited bothered to show up.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
According to the Daily Mail (via Weasel Zippers):
Her mother, Allyson Seel-Sorenson, took a heartbreaking photo of her daughter sitting alone in front of her cake with a party hat on because she ‘didn’t know what else to do’.
‘I was hiding behind a pillar crying and sent the picture to my husband asking him what I should do. I didn’t know what I should tell her,’ Mrs Seel-Sorenson told Daily Mail Australia.
My daughter was finally wanting to celebrate her birthday with friends, she was so excited and so were we because we were able to give this to her. But then no one showed up.
As her cousin’s plaintive post notes, Hallee is autistic, which may explain the heartless reaction by peers. If you’d like to wish a belated happy birthday, the address (copied from the post) is:
Hallee Sorenson
34 Wellesley Way
Bangor, ME 04401