I miss them terribly. Most of them are dead, or dying in a nursing home. They are not my blood relatives, and I am not speaking now of those people who called my parents mom and dad. I miss them too, and love seeing them when I can, but they are not the people with whom I shared my childhood. They weren't my playmates; they were too "old", too "mature". No, I am speaking of those people I always referred to as "the residents". Although when it comes down to it, they are my brothers and sisters.
The "residents" were the adults who lived in the group home which was also my childhood home. My mother owned such homes from before I was born until she died. I spent my first fourteen years living in an adult congregate living facility. The residents were adults who could not quite live on their own and who required more care than their families could provide. Many had aging parents, some were aging parents.
I came home from school and talked about my day with Jane, who sometimes forgot she wasn't a warden any longer in a women's prison and who, once, mistaking me for an inmate out of area, struck me with her cane. She taught me how elusive both memory and truth are, which has given me patience and understanding.
I played checkers (both types) with Leroy, whose developmental disabilities left him mentally closer to my age of 8, which I thought was a great excuse to demand the right to smoke cigars like him, after all, we were the same age! I awed at how gracefully he took being beaten at a board game by a child. Day in and day out. He never wanted me to take it easy on him, so I was ruthless. He just laughed and had just as much fun as I had, which taught me how it's the journey that matters. He taught me all the important ways of being smart.
Bobby swung by as I was doing my homework in our living space each night just to say hi. Just to share a smile. Bobby sustained severe head trauma after a motorcycle accident at the age of 18. I learned so much from him. Not moving too fast to share a smile or say hi being chief among them.
My baby sitter was Judy. She loved my mom. They all did. And mom loved them right back, but Judy was special. She suffered from both manic depression and schizophrenia. Most days she was great, indulgent to me (which I loved, of course), really interested in what I had to say, fiercely loyal to my mother, a hard -worker (she cleaned and did odd jobs for extra cash). A couple times a year, though, she'd go for a drive with my mom. Oh, I'd scream and pout that I couldn't go. They left after dinner or near bedtime and I always hated missing an adventure. It was years before I discovered the cause of those trips. Mom was driving her to an institution a couple hours away. Of course I never knew this because they were usually back by morning. Mom almost always talked her down. She was good at talking people down. What struck me the most about Judy, and what drives so much of my heart, was more her backstory, so to speak.
Like Bobby, her life changed at 18. For her though, it was emotional change rather than physical. Judy had been prom queen, beautiful, smart, really going places. That is, until her sweetheart left her at the altar. She spiraled downward and latent alcoholism reared its ugly head. By the time I knew her, she looked nothing like the girl with long flowing blond hair in the faded photograph she showed me.
Her blond hair severe, cut bluntly, died bright beige, almost yellow, with dark roots. Her fingers stained from cigars, nails bitten to the quick. She taught me how fleeting youth and beauty are. I blame her for not letting me relate to the 'it' girls in school. Their concerns didn't mean anything to me. I found them trite and boring.
What's the point of caring about looks or popularity when we are all just one bad break-up, one tragic ride away from living a life unrecognizable to Bobby and Judy in their youth. Bobby and Judy taught me the trick of time; how quickly reality changes; how severely our lives can change; how easy it is to not recognize yourself in the mirror.
Then there was Jeannie. Like Leroy, closer to my eight than her forty-eight, but she was all girl. We sat in her room for hours making collages. Just cutting out pictures we liked. Jeannie taught me this truth; life is one great big art project, and we are the end result.
I could go on. There were twenty two such teachers, friends, confidants, gurus, in my childhood home. There was the woman who never left the house without her pearls and frequently had tea with the queen. Although, she snuck out in broad daylight on foot, in nothing but those pearls (and sometimes sneakers) quite regularly. She taught me how persistent the mind is, how much it overrides the body, how we all live in our minds, exactly where we want to be.
There was Ron, who suffered severe epilepsy and had a whole host of other conditions. He'd stop by for a hi too. He didn't drool as much as Bobby, whose mouth had all the control of a Walking Dead walker, but he had a roving eye (just one) and a nervous tic. Those guys taught me how to look past people's actions and just see who they are.
When I think about who really knew the child I was, who fostered her, who taught her right from wrong and just damn near everything I know about life, I just can't keep them to myself. If I have a compassionate, understanding, kind, tolerant bone in my body, it is due to them.
I've been to some great trainings for teaching students with special needs, and specifically, for creating more inclusion in the school. Most people think it would benefit the students with special needs to spend more time with the rest of the students. I am lucky enough to know it's the other way around.
I find it ironic that the best parts of me, the parts of my worldview that others respect, have been gained by people so frequently marginalized in society, in schools. So much money and time is spent in trying to encapsulate the kind of emotional education that I received. So much credence is now given to those "soft skills" and researching how to best help our children acquire them.
Zora Neale Hurston said, "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." In so many ways I feel like I had the answers long before I knew the questions. I feel lucky to be in a place where I see them both so clearly, and sometimes I wonder if my students know who is really teaching them.
