The Truth Shall Set You Free

A bouncy three-year-old happily skips around the classroom as his mother and I watch. All of a sudden he stops, looks at  me, and says my name. I fight tears with everything that is in me. I have poured my whole heart into this boy. He knows about twenty words and my name is one of them!

I tickle him and then I stop to make him say "more".  I throw him up in the air while he squeals with joy and then I stop to elicit a "yes". I have worked with him on colors, sitting at the table, putting his coat on… We all have, there are several of us and every day we painstakingly and patiently try to teach skills that typical children pick up with ease.

"When you are here I know that I don't have to worry. You are like his second mother…"

An honor I do not feel worthy of and words I hold onto for the rest of my life. Her son nonverbal and severely autistic, this mother sends her prayers with him to school every day. She has to trust us that we will do the best we can and treat him well. He can never tell her what happened that day.

I see myself standing on a hill overlooking our garden and an orchard filled with fruit trees.  Tiny green apples have just carelessly thrown their pinkish attire into the air and are now shamelessly bathing in the sun's rays. A whirl of falling blossoms fills the air as the wind chases them among the trees.

"You need to be careful!"

My mother leans down and looks at my bleeding face. I saw her coming from work, ran to her as fast as I could, and… thump! My clumsy five years old legs tripped. I don't know how her embrace feels. Hugging isn't something that's done in my family. I have never heard my parents say "I love you" to each other or to my sister and I. Many years later I try to explain my Christianity.

"Dad, you know how the Bible says, love is patient, love is kind, that is all I want!"

"You are worse than a whore!"

Love is not easily angered… In a reflex I put my hands over my head and try to protect myself from what usually comes next. Filled with a profound feeling of loneliness and not belonging I promise myself to never have a life like my family's.

Now I am sitting here with my little student. Somehow, I have been able to get across to him that I love him and that I care. "You are like his second mother…" unknowingly, this woman assuages a dreadful fear I have carried inside me all of my life. Do I have the ability to love people? Will they ever understand  I love them? Am I ever going to make a difference? Somehow, I finally feel like I was able to jump off my family's merry-go-round.

The car windows are down as my friend and I are talking. She briefly stopped by to check on me. All of a sudden, her son in the back seat stretches out his hand towards me . This profoundly disabled twenty year old is trying to say "hi". As I hold his hand I wonder if he remembers how I used to carry him on my back when he was little and how we would sit at Dunkin Donuts with his favorite cookie on Sundays so that he could people watch.

The most important people are those who speak the truth. The truth shall set you free. Too disabled to do otherwise these two boys can only speak the truth.  They are the most important people in my universe.