Daniel Harrison, who has autism, recently wrote down two wishes – and one of them came true.
“Daniel, for the first time, was asked at his special needs school to write two things that he’d like to achieve,” Daniel’s dad, Kevin Harrison, told CBS News. “His first was learning to drive and the second thing – which surprised us – was ‘make some friends,’ because we didn’t understand that he understood the theory of friendship.”
Harrison, who is from Nottingham, England, said children on the autism spectrum often want to play alone, and Daniel has never expressed wanting friends. “So, that shocked us to the core, really,” he said.
Dad's Twitter post asked for help and suggestions; it began racking up likes and replies, snowballing until it was the number one trending topic on Twitter for the U.S. “I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What on Earth have I done?'” Harrison said. “And a lot of that was down to Mark Hamill, from ‘Star Wars.'”
Hamill, known for his portrayal of Luke Skywalker, was one of the first celebrities totweet a happy birthday messageto Daniel. His tweet alone received more than 17,000 likes.
Harrison listed Russell Crowe, Sharon Stone and Ariel Winter as other celebrities who tweeted to Daniel – but many of the replies were from parents of children who also have special needs.
Here's the tweet. Check those replies. Awesome responses...