Count Me In

Inclusion. It’s something we all want.

It doesn’t feel good to be left out.

When I was a kid, I wanted a bike so I could ride with the other kids.

I didn’t get one so, not wanting to be left out, I borrowed one from my sister Sue or my friend up the street (thanks Nancy!).

Remember what it felt like when all your friends were talking about the invitation they got to a classmate’s birthday party and you didn’t get one?

Remember wondering if yours was coming in the mail later than everyone else’s or if you just weren’t invited?

It stings.

~~~

I’ve been following some people on facebook recently. People I’ve never met. People I have come to love and admire.

I think I started following the first page (Finding Cooper’s Voice) because it showed up in my feed at just the right time.

Cooper is autistic and non-verbal. The page is run by his mother.

I have a friend who invited me to her house around that time. She has a son who is autistic. I have known several people over the years with autistic children, but I’ve never met any of them.

Since school was out at the time and her son was going to be home, I asked her what kind of things he liked. She told me he liked hot wheels vintage cars, anything Mario Brothers, and chocolate chip cookies.

I elected to make chocolate chip cookies.

A whole batch.

Just for him.

So on the appointed date and time, I showed up with cookies in hand.

I was coming into his territory and I wanted him to see me as a friendly person.

I gave my friend Helen the cookies and told her that I made them for Charlie (not their real names to protect their privacy).

She immediately called Charlie to come downstairs. She introduced us and told Charlie that I had made the cookies just for him.

He ate half a cookie, walked over to me and hugged me, then went back and ate the other half.

His mom was all like wow, he doesn’t go around hugging just anybody!

It made me feel very special.

Later on, he came back downstairs, looked at me, and pointed to the love seat across from the couch I was sitting on.

Helen told me that they watch Sponge Bob from 1-2:00 every day and I was sitting in his place. Would I mind moving to the love seat.

Of course I didn’t mind. I had my place at the kitchen table when I was a kid and I always wanted to be in my “place” at supper time. I totally understood.

Besides, I had the privilege of being included in their daily routine which was such an honor. It was the first time I visited them and here they were making me feel like part of the family! It didn’t hurt that I love sponge Bob, either!

~~~

Being included is a big deal.

The pages I’ve been following include several moms who have kids with autism and other neurological disorders, and a young man who has apraxia of speech (I had to look it up, too).

Reading the posts from these pages has given me a lot to think about. These kids grow up under enormous pressure to conform to a standard that is totally unrealistic.

And they are often under these pressures even as adults.

It shouldn’t be up to them to change who they are so that the rest of the world feels comfortable around them.

It should be up to us to learn as much as we can about those who are “different” from us and find a way to include them in our lives. We don’t tell our children how to include others, we show them.

I was worried about my granddaughter starting school because of her feeding tube. I wasn’t sure how kids would react to her.

They have had to make accommodations for her to be fed twice a day while she’s at school. Sometimes she throws up. Occasionally she wants something to eat by mouth instead of by tube.

Her tube is under her clothes and most of the kids probably don’t even know she has it, but they probably notice that she goes away for a period of time every day when she gets fed.

What about the kids who’s differences are more obvious? Are the other kids kind to them? Do they include them in their play? Do they get treated like they’re just one of the kids in the class?

~~~

When I was growing up, there was a group home (for handicapped men) about a block and a half from our house. Sometimes in the summer we’d have outdoor movies at our house with the neighborhood kids and some of the guys from the group home would come (they were neighborhood kids, too).

The benches from our picnic table, and some of the neighbors’ picnic tables, would be set up on the driveway along with a projector and we would have movies on our white garage door on Friday nights.

I couldn’t tell you any of the movies we watched, and I have no recollection of how many summers we did this, but I do know that we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

And then there was the man who rented the upstairs apartment in the house across the street for a while. He was deaf.

I remember many an afternoon where he and my dad were sitting out back at the picnic table having a conversation where not a word was spoken.

He couldn’t hear and my dad couldn’t sign.

I’d watch them writing notes to each other, having their conversation in writing.

A few gestures here and there.

A facial expression.

A nod.

A clap.

It was wonderful to watch.

Over my lifetime, the buzz words have gone from tolerate, to accept, to embrace, to include.

I never liked the idea of tolerating someone’s differences. That always sounded like there was a value judgement attached to it. Someone who is different isn’t necessarily better or worse than me, they’re just different.

Acceptance, while somewhat better than tolerance, had a feeling of it’s ok that we’re different, but please keep your differences on your own side of the street.

Embracing and including are getting us closer. But those are only lame gestures without true understanding.

We have to get to know each other. We have to learn about our differences. We need to understand what it is in someone else’s life that sways them in this direction or that.

Once we spend some real time together, once we get to know each other, once we understand each other, then we can go for the prize which is beyond inclusion.

Love.