Autistic Oregon boy finds treasure in friendship with garbage truck driver

Every Wednesday at precisely 8:40 a.m., 8-year-old Dima Kerdivara runs out the front door of his home in Troutdale and waits for the garbage man.

He can hear a rumbling from the end of his street as the garbage truck approaches, sees the man in the highlighter-yellow vest waving as he empties the green bins from the curb.

Dima is smiling, wearing a hat emblazoned with the garbage company logo – more social than his parents could have imagined just a few years ago when their son jumped at loud noises and withdrew from human touch.

But Dima, who has autism, loves the garbage truck, and he loves the man who drives it.

Over the past three years, Dima and Rene Vesi have developed an unlikely friendship that Dima’s parents say has allowed their son to become more confident and open to social interaction.

This week, as the truck stopped outside his house, Dima ran up and Vesi got out to greet him.

Vesi, 48, stooped down to give Dima a gift from the garbage company, Waste Management, as he does whenever he can. This Wednesday, it was a child-size version of his bright yellow vest.

Vesi put it on Dima while his parents beamed from the driveway.

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Dima’s family immigrated to the United States from Russia in 2013, religious refugees pursuing a new life free from discrimination in their home city of Krasnodar, near Russia’s Black Sea coast.

As Seventh-Day Adventists, a Protestant Christian denomination that observes a day of rest on Saturdays, they said they were denied opportunities to take university entrance exams and otherwise treated like second-class citizens.

But aside from finding a community of fellow immigrants and the freedom to practice their religion in the Portland area, Dima’s parents were able to access specialized therapy programs and classes to help their son learn to interact with others.

Dima started exhibiting behaviors indicative of autism when he was around 2 years old, refusing to be held or to look his parents in the eyes. He never learned to speak.

“In Russia the doctors wouldn’t have known what to do with him,” Dima’s mother, Alla Kerdivara, said in Russian.

Now, the family drives to nearby Boring every week for horse therapy, and every October they fly to Florida for a five-day camp where Dima swims with dolphins. Over the years, with the help of speech and language therapy, Dima has begun expressing more emotion, hugging his parents and using simple phrases to communicate when he’s hungry or sleepy.

But the biggest change in his demeanor, his parents say, has been from his weekly interactions with the garbage man.

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Vesi, who has worked for Waste Management for almost 15 years, immigrated from Estonia in 1996 and never planned to work in waste disposal. But with few opportunities to pursue his previous profession – policing – he took on the truck driving job and started familiarizing himself with the route and the people he would see on it.

One day, about three years ago, he saw a small boy peeking out the window from behind a curtain.

“I started waving to him and as I kept driving by each week, he started smiling at me,” Vesi said. “Eventually he started coming out and we built a relationship.”

Vesi would bring Dima gifts from Waste Management, like a model garbage truck and a pamphlet about recycling. He grew used to seeing the boy each week.

“Driving this truck along the same route every week, people wait for you,” Vesi said. “You watch the children grow and it’s like they’re your family, too.”

Then, two months ago, the family moved from an apartment in Gresham to their current home in Troutdale – and Vesi’s route didn’t pass by their new house until Dima had already left for school.

Once Dima realized the garbage truck wasn’t coming by at its usual time, he grew despondent.

He didn’t want to go to school, his mother said, and would wrap himself in a blanket, sit and wait for the truck to come by.

In a letter to the garbage company, his 26-year-old sister, Margarita, described it as a “complete collapse of his weekly ritual.”

“His entire, familiar world was blown apart,” she wrote.

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As Vesi drove the truck by the family’s new home mid-morning on a Wednesday soon after their move, Alla Kerdivara came by to greet him.

Once he found out that Dima expected to see him early on Wednesday mornings, he decided to alter his route to serve the boy’s street before Dima left for school.

“When I didn’t see him, it just felt like my day was incomplete,” Vesi said.

In the weeks since, Dima has eagerly waited for Vesi’s truck to come by on schedule again. He often sits just outside the front door, and sometimes he films the truck with a cellphone.

Despite the changes they’ve seen in their son, Dima’s parents can’t help but think about the future. They’re getting older and they worry that if their son doesn’t learn to talk or become self-reliant, eventually they won’t be able to take care of him.

But when they see him with Vesi, they feel just a little calmer.

“He lives in his own world,” said Dima’s father, Dmitry Kerdivara Sr. “This interaction creates a bridge between our world and his. And it takes away the fear. Because we know that there are good people who will help him.”

After a few minutes, Vesi had to get back to his route, but he paused long enough to give Dima a high-five. Normally Dima would leave for school at 8:45 a.m., but because it’s summer break, he ran back inside the house to play with his model garbage truck, still wearing the miniature yellow vest.

Vesi moved on to the next house, and Dima watched from the window, knowing he’ll be back soon.

-- Diana Kruzman; dkruzman@oregonian.com; 503-221-5394; @DKruzman