Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs (28 page)

“How are my children today?”

“They’re fine, Mrs. Dreichel, just fine.”

“Did Katie eat her lunch today?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Driechel, she ate a good lunch.”

“She doesn’t like tuna, you know.”

“I know, Mrs. Driechel. She had soup today.”

“How’s Clifford?”

“Clifford is fine, as well.”

“Did Clifford walk today?”

“Oh, yes, Peggy and Mona walked with him for twenty minutes.”

Then came that all-too-familiar pause that I failed to prepare myself for again and again. With a tremble in her sweet, little Ukrainian-accented voice, she’d say, “I miss my children so much, Donna. I wish I could take them home with me. If Mister was alive, we could manage. I know we could. I love my children so much.” There was a sense of loneliness and desperation in her voice that I felt great compassion, but could not truly embrace.

Mrs. Dreichel was eighty-one years old. Her husband had passed away six years prior. Her children were fifty-three and fifty-two. Both were incontinent, nonverbal, suffered from seizure disorders, and had limited mobility. There were no limitations on Mrs. Dreichel’s love for her children. Once a month, she would take Katie and Clifford home for four days. When approaching Mrs. Dreichel’s neighborhood, Katie would clap her hands and scream with delight. Clifford, on the other hand, always seemed to be just amazed with the traffic. Upon their arrival, Mrs. Dreichel would be standing on her doorstep, delicate and fragile in stature, yet larger than life and beaming with anticipation. As soon as they were taken off the bus, she would smother them with hugs and kisses. “I missed you so much,” she’d say.

As we stepped inside, the aroma of freshly baked bread welcomed us. The sweet sound of Jim Reeves playing in the background filled her home with a peacefulness that needs no explanation. There were times when I wish I could have stayed.

Katie would be placed in her rocking chair. If there were two things in life that Katie loved, it was rocking and old country music. By this time,Clifford would be crawling to his bedroom. He would sit on his bed and play with his yellow truck. This was something that always made Clifford smile.

Mrs. Dreichel’s daughter Rose was a great help as well. She would come daily to assist with their personal care and daily medications.

Although Katie and Clifford were not with us for the next four days, I still felt a sense of responsibility for their well-being, and I would call Mrs. Dreichel the following day to see if everything was okay.

The conversation was much shorter now. She reminded me of a woman who had just returned from the hospital with her newborn. Within minutes, she’d say, “I have to go now.” The transformation was heartwarming and magical. Her voice exhibited no loneliness. The next four days belonged to her.

Although the return trip became very routine for us, it was heart-wrenching. When I arrived at the house, you could tell that Mrs. Dreichel had been crying. She would have her children bathed, fed, and ready for departure. Clifford would sometimes hold on to her and push us away. This, you could tell, left her very emotional. Katie would often scream. Katie’s screams were no longer foreign to me and were always anticipated. This was her way
of communicating.

Although we had a deadline to meet, we always allowed extra time for Mrs. Dreichel to say good-bye. Again, she would smother her children with hugs and kisses, and tell them she loved them more than anything. “I may never see them again,” she’d whisper. Standing on her doorstep, wiping away her tears, she would wave to Katie and Clifford until the distance between them became unknown. Her posture changed. She no longer stood tall and proud. The loneliness and desperation once again
intruded upon her.

Mrs. Dreichel passed away in 2004 while sitting in her living room. There was no burden too heavy, no challenge too great for Mrs. Dreichel. She was, in my eyes, what motherhood stands for.

Donna Judge Malarsky

Donna Judge Malarsky
is employed at a Christian school in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada. She grew up in an extremely small town, Small Point, Newfoundland. She moved to Edmonton in 1991, and married the love of her life in 2003. She has two grown children and three grandchildren, whom she loves dearly.

An Angel Among Us

I
nstill the love of you into the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

The Teaching for Merikare

All teachers remember that one student who reaches into the depths of their hearts and touches their souls. Jackie was mine. She had lived most of her nine years in and out of hospitals and homebound classrooms by the time she arrived at mine. I joined the platoon of all who taught and cared for Jackie, astounded by her amazing spirit, as we witnessed her bravely fighting the dreaded disease that was maliciously robbing her body of its ability to survive. Having spent so much of her short life being poked with needles and fighting to breathe, Jackie did not totally trust anybody, always keeping her distance. Only her mother was allowed close enough to hug Jackie and give her the love and affection we all wanted to share.

Most of my students that year were little rough-and-tumble boys who avowed often that they had absolutely no use for girls. However, they had not reckoned with Jackie. With her curious combination of an adorable sense of humor and understandable caution, she drew each of us into her web and made us her protectors. I would often hear “You know, she’s just like one of the guys,” and “Jackie’s here73” coming from my little guys’ mouths.

Two days before Jackie’s last hospitalization, her mother brought her to my classroom late one afternoon after the dismissal of all the school’s students. Collecting her belongings on that final day, Jackie finally succumbed to the world around her—and my prayers—and let someone besides her mother get close enough to her to kneel down and give her a long hug, a show of long overdue affection. I shall forever be grateful to the God I worship that I was that person. As her mother snapped a picture of the two of us, I could feel the fragile bones of Jackie’s body and was sadly aware of just how pitifully and painfully ill Jackie truly was.

As the three of us walked down the school corridor together, I knew I would never see Jackie again, that this would be her last hospital stay. I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks, and an intense sadness cover me with a shimmering and shivering fog. Jackie turned at the end of the hall, clutching her Barney, and waved a final and somewhat shy good-bye. Jackie’s mother gave a wavering smile that I knew was overflowing with her immense bravery and sadness.

Three weeks later, I heard a quiet knock at my classroom door. One of my closest teacher friends stood before me with tear-filled eyes, holding a slender newspaper clipping in her shaking hands. “What is it?” I asked, so afraid of the answer. She quietly handed me Jackie’s obituary and gently hugged me as I cried profuse tears of loss. I was finally able to return to my classroom to give the hardest and saddest news I had ever had to share with a class. We gathered together as I told the children of Jackie’s death and the disease that had taken her from us. We cried and hugged and spent a special moment in time, remembering a little girl who had meant so much to us all.

One of the quietest little boys said what we all felt, “She always was an angel, and now she is one.” At the students’ suggestion, we dedicated a bulletin board to Jackie. I watched through my own sadness and tears as the class produced pictures and stories in honor and memory of their special friend. I now knew, as those little boys showed, an angel had indeed been in our midst. But still I grieved with intense pain and the empty feeling of a terrible loss.

Several weeks after Jackie’s funeral, I heard a soft knock at my door and was overjoyed to see Jackie’s mother standing before me. “I’m so sorry” were the first words out of my mouth. As we hugged and cried together, she told me quietly, “Thank you so much for loving my child.” Very timidly, she handed me an envelope. Inside was the picture of Jackie and me in that one last hug. “Oh, thank you,” I said, knowing I would treasure that picture always, as a memory of someone too special to ever truly be lost or forgotten. “Thank you for lending Jackie to us.”

I invited her into the classroom. At first she declined, but I told her I had something special to show her. I introduced her to the class, and a hush settled. One of my shyest students walked up to Jackie’s mother, silently took her hand, and led her to Jackie’s bulletin board. She read each letter and stared at every picture, including Jackie’s obituary, touching each lovingly. As she turned to look at us with tears of sadness streaming down her face, a tiny quaking voice said, “We want you to have our pictures of Jackie.”

While taking them down, I watched Jackie’s mother walk from child to child and give each a shy kiss. She said her good-byes to the students, and we walked down the school hallway together, both knowing it would be the last time we would meet and talk. We stopped to hug, and then I watched her walk out of my life just as I had watched her little angel do. As she turned to wave goodbye in the same way as her child, I noticed her clutching the pictures and letters to her breast, as if hoping to keep Jackie close. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized I was holding Jackie’s picture in the same way.

Margaret Prator

Margaret Prator
, a “born” teacher of twenty-five years’ duration, with concentration on children with disabilities, has also been a freelance writer for as long. Several of her nostalgia pieces have been published in regional publications. Her column, STATION K-I-D-Z, narrated by Church Mouse, appears in her church’s newsletter. Please e-mail her at [email protected].

6
SIBLING
REVELRY

B
rothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.

Vietnamese Proverb

Something About Benny

A
brother is a friend given by nature.

Jean Baptiste Legouve

There is something about Benny that is strange. My little brother Benny doesn’t look strange, but sometimes he acts like he is from a different planet. He thinks he is a dinosaur, and roars in restaurants and growls in the grocery store. My mom tells him not to growl so loudly, but he doesn’t always listen.

There is something about Benny that is different from other little boys. Most little boys want to grow up to be firemen or astronauts. Not Benny. He wants to grow up and be a building. He likes to hold up the walls at the school and stare at the bricks very closely. I think he can see right through them, but he never tells me what he sees.

There is something about Benny that is magical. He can make a whole room of people disappear just by closing his eyes really tight and saying, “Go away!”
Poof!
They’re gone. When he wants them to come back again, he just opens his eyes. Sometimes I wish I could do that magic trick, too.

There is something about Benny that is smart. He never forgets where he puts his toys, shoes, books, coat, or chocolate-chip cookie. He has memorized all of his favorite movies, from beginning to end. He can say them line for line and not miss a word. He knows all of his colors and the alphabet and the bones of the tyrannosaurus
rex, but he won’t always tell you.

There is something about Benny that is unique. He doesn’t care what the other kids are wearing to school or what the weather is like outside. Last summer, when the sun was melting ice-cream cones faster than we could lick them, he wore a blue snowsuit and a green knitted cap every day. In the winter, when the ice cracked beneath our feet on the driveway, he wore his swimsuit and his favorite short-sleeved T-shirt. My mom told him he couldn’t wear it outside, so he laid down flat and closed his eyes and made her go away.

There are lots of things about Benny that are funny. He makes silly faces and rolls his eyes and giggles to himself. He hides in the bushes and thinks he really is a tyrannosaurus rex. He wants to eat leaves, because that is, of course, what dinosaurs do. But my mom won’t let him. She makes him eat chicken.

There is something about Benny that is athletic. He climbs trees and walls and doorways, and makes it look so easy. He can hike farther than any of my friends, and he can ride his bike for miles and miles without even breathing hard. He can also swim for hours and never get tired.