for they will be seen as human!

i’m not sure why i was thinking about this today but i was driving back from dropping off our recycling (oh wait, it just hit me, never mind) and this thort came in to my head – i wish that i knew how to relate to handicapped people better

when i was a little kid my folks used to take me to this place called the Avril Elizabeth home once a week where they would sing some songs and maybe do a talk for a whole bunch of kids with various handicaps (or whatever the politically correct word for handicaps is these days but, you know) from physical to mental and i would love to say that those visits paved the way for me to grow up as an adjusted young man, able to connect with, understand and love those people, but it didn’t

it freaked me out. a lot. and thinking back i think it was purely because the whole thing was not explained to me. i think my parents were incredible for going week after week and really just trying to share God’s love with a bunch of people that for the most part the world has rejected, ignored or forgotten (or at the very least, snuck quietly into the corner) but i think it would have made a complete difference if they had sat me down at home and explained the whole thing – i think the assumption was that exposure would be enuff (and i think for a lot of people it is) but for some reason it just didn’t click with me and so i saw them as freaks, as weird, as… let’s be honest here… retards…

and i REALLY wish it had been different… but now i stand (well sit) behind my keyboard (yup, definitely sitting, otherwise my neck would be messed from all that downward stretching) and i am sorry it didn’t work out differently – because i still struggle to feel comfortable around those who are physically/mentally different to me in such an extreme way and i want to be able to shed all those child-enforced-and-learnt responses and just be amazing with them

the one thing i do remember is the nurses, who were amazing with the kids – and the majority of them i recall – if not all of them – were black nurses and this was mid 1980’s – and just remember seeing such love and acceptance and complete utter treatment of them as humans… and not lesser humans, and certainly not retards – maybe apartheid could have been ‘pulled’ a whole lot earlier if a bunch of stupid white leadery people had had the chance to sit and observe those nurses for an hour a week…

my friend nancy the twin (and her sister mary the twin) who recently got married to dreadlock mike (Zanzibar, it is!) has a brother called Simon who is different in some way and he was in top form at the wedding and an absolute pleasure to watch – he was sitted right next to the podium where the speeches happened and any time someone got going on a speech he would start clapping and it made me think of the Oscars, when someone is talking too long and the music starts to play – come on Simon, it’s your cue, send them awaaaayyyy…

and i think i’m getting better, cos i didn’t run and hide every time Simon was near, which was a lot cos i think he digs me and was following me and staring me down a lot, and i really enjoy him, altho still feel awkward and weird and like i don’t get it a lot of the time…

but he is not a retard! he is the brother of two good friends of mine. and that makes him my friend.

if he’ll have me…