[00:07.98]I didn’t cry when I learned I was the parent of a mentally handicapped child.
[00:13.46]“Go ahead and cry,”the doctor advised kindly.
[00:16.84]But I couldn’t cry then nor during the months that followed.
[00:21.33]We enrolled her in our neighborhood school’s kindergarten at age seven.
[00:25.71]I worried that when she was the“different”child among twenty five-year-olds,
[00:31.06]it was probably the loneliest moment she had ever known.
[00:34.79]However, positive things began to happen to Kristi in her school,
[00:39.52]and to her schoolmates, too.
[00:41.36]When boasting of their own accomplishments,
[00:43.96]Kristi’s classmates always took pains to praise her as well,
[00:48.03]“Kristi got all her spelling words right today.”
[00:51.20]No one bothered to add that her spelling list was easier than anyone else’s.
[00:56.78]During Kristi’s second year in school, she faced a very special experience.
[01:02.36]The big public event of the term was a competition
[01:05.97]based on a culmination of the year’s music and physical education activities.
[01:11.22]Kristi was way behind in both music and motor coordination.
[01:16.58]My husband and I dreaded the day as well.
[01:19.65]On the day of the program, Kristi pretended to be sick.
[01:23.59]Desperately I wanted to keep her home.
[01:26.32]Why let Kristi fail in a gymnasium filled with parents, students and teachers?
[01:32.56]What a simple solution! But I finally got her onto the school bus.
[01:37.15]Just as I had forced my daughter to go to school,
[01:40.20]now I forced myself to go to the program.
[01:43.49]Then I knew why Kristi had been worried.
[01:46.66]Her class was divided into relay teams.
[01:49.73]With her limp and slow, clumsy reactions, she would surely hold up her team.
[01:55.64]But as Kristi’s turn to participate neared, a change took place in her team.
[02:01.11]The tallest boy in the line stepped behind Kristi
[02:04.72]and placed his hands on her waist.
[02:06.80]Two other boys stood a little ahead of her.
[02:09.64]The moment the player in front of Kristi stepped from the sack,
[02:13.14]those two boys grabbed the sack and held it open
[02:16.64]while the tall boy lifted Kristi and dropped her neatly into it.
[02:20.91]A girl in front of Kristi took her hand and supported her briefly
[02:25.46]until Kristi gained her balance.
[02:27.48]Then off she hopped, smiling and proud.
[02:30.54]Amid the cheers of teachers, schoolmates and parents,
[02:34.04]I crept off by myself to thank Heaven for the warm, understanding people in life
[02:40.09]who make it possible for my disabled daughter to be like her fellow human beings.
[02:45.34]Then I finally cried.
