I was nine when I first discovered I wasn't normal. Up until then I had been put into classrooms with kids in wheelchairs operated by their mouths and kids who wore helmets. Kids who acted like they were six rather than their real age of 12. Most of whom drooled and couldn’t pronounce let alone spell their own names. The type of kids that others would make fun of, and adults didn’t know how to handle. So instead, they were separated made to eat their lunches hidden in their classroom. Tucked away from the rest of the bunch. Because they felt it was better to be safe than sorry. Up until then, theses kids weren’t any different than I. Rather they were classmates, and friends. Fellow students.
But at nine, everything changed.
That was the year when the local school county actually began to listen to my parents. Who for years insisted that I didn’t belong in such a group. That I in fact was to advanced for the self contained disability focused classes. My Cerebral Palsy-caused when my mom was bitten by a dog in the stomach while carrying me, causing me to have a prenatal stroke-was only minor. I had full range of everything except my right hand. It had little effect on my mental ability, which was at this point far outshining most of everyone's expectations. While most of the students could barely read and write, I was forming sentences, and paragraphs. I was understanding math and science. And while I was wearing a brace on my leg, the doctors assured my parents it soon would be coming off, now that my walking had caught up to the rest of me.
Finally, during the spring of third grade they began to deliberate. They began to observe. They had meeting after meeting. With teachers, with psychologists, with therapists. All of whom seem to acknowledge that I was farther advanced than most of the children in the classroom. In fact, they were having a hard time keeping up with my learning. As much as they loved having me in the program, I was no longer disabled enough to be in the program. Their resources for me were already quickly evaporating. When all was said and done, it was agreed that in the fall of the following year, I would be transferred from the classroom and the walls I had known for years, and start the fourth grade among the 'normal children.'
I remember it all. Sometimes so vividly still it scares me. Those wonderful feelings I had those days leading up to the first day. How excited I was to step on to the long bus, instead of the short bus I was so used to. To stand with my baby sister, who was a newly first grader and hold her hand at the bus stop. I was, like every other elementary school kid. How I loved walking her to her class room before I made my way into that classroom that had no adaptations to fit certain needs. How I looked at my desk, with my name on it and thought, finally. I am just like everyone else. I would have friends, and slumber parties. And recess without worrying if I was going to hurt 'Cory' who I loved but his helmet made it hard for him to do much of anything at times. Yes I remember it all. How I sat down, pulled out my Rainbow Brite lunch box, and then quickly hiding it under my desk once I realized in the fourth grade everyone switched to paper bags. And as my teacher started his yearly speech I breathed and thought See I am just like everyone else.
Normal.
But like many things, what we think is often very far from what actually is.
And how quickly my joy would soon turn to tears.
And I would learn just how different I really was…
