Waitresses Learn Sign Language for Age 4 Boy on His Birthday in Heartwarming Video
Because two Tennessee servers took the time to notice how a family was communicating, they were able to make a 4-year-old boy’s birthday dinner a very memorable one.
Shatika Dixon decided to take her son, Octavius Mitchell, Jr., to Texas Roadhouse on July 18, 2018, to celebrate his fourth birthday. The casual steakhouse normally has people celebrating their birthdays sit on a saddle while the servers wish them a happy birthday.
“He loves animals so he was so excited about getting to sit on this and (have) all the attention on him,” Dixon said.
A group of servers helped the toddler onto the saddle and gave him the birthday honor, but as one server watched Dixon interact with her son she noticed that the two were interacting using American Sign Language.
“I’m sitting there and I’m watching from a distance, and the mom is signing to the little boy which I noticed he had his hearing aids,” Kathryn Marasco, a server at Texas Roadhouse, said.
Octavius was actually born hearing-impaired.
Marasco turned to one of her co-workers, Brandi White, to ask if she knew how to say “happy birthday” in sign language.
White admitted that she didn’t, but as a student studying Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, she wanted to help the little boy have a special birthday.
White pulled up a YouTube video on her phone so she and Marasco could learn how to sign the phrase.
Marasco said, “She comes up to me and says, ‘Kat, Kat. I found a YouTube video of how to sign happy birthday.’ So we’re sitting down next to each other. It took us two seconds to learn it.”
The two servers then went over the table and signed “happy birthday.” Dixon was overwhelmed with emotion.
“Everybody thinks we’re crazy when we’re out talking and we’re signing. So it’s really important to me that someone noticed that and picked up on that and made that special just for him, my baby,” she said.
White said she just wants those who come into her restaurant to feel comfortable. She said, “As a server, I want you to be able to come in, I want (you) to be like, ‘Oh this is my home, I belong here.'”
Dixon said that it was the first time her son had ever signed with someone other than herself or his teacher. The sweet gesture definitely made the night a memorable one for this little boy and his mom.
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