Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Mary

At my school we have two Special Education Classrooms. We have the Learning Center, which is my classroom, as well as a LifeSkills Classroom. In the LifeSkills room, we have a girl named Mary. (Not her real name, obviously) Mary is a fourth grade girl with Severe Autism. As most of you know, I have a HUGE heart for Autistic Kids, and I was intrigued from Day #1 with Mary.

About 6 weeks ago, she discovered me in the hall. We became instant friends, and she was INCREDIBLY drawn to my limp. I mean, she would hold my hand and walk with me as I would walk her to class or wherever she was headed at the moment. The whole time, she would stare at my left foot. She really wanted to understand the limp. Her aide stated it was only a matter of time before she would imitate the limp and she was trying to figure out how to do it. I would smile and let her figure it out.

Well, yesterday she took my hand, and we started walking. She just wanted to walk, and it was during my plan time, so I just walked with her. Her aide told me that we needed to go to her regular classroom so that she could give something to the kids. So, Mary and I walked hand-in-hand to her classroom.

On the way back, Mary stopped and looked at me. Then she looked at my foot. She grabbed my ankle and made my foot straight. I just looked at her, and she said, "walk". (She's pretty much a non-verbal, so that was cool in itself!) I started to walk, but it's incredibly tough for me to take more than a couple steps like that without my ankle hurting. I tried really hard though because Mary really wanted me to walk straight. We made it half-way to the LifeSkills Room, and she stopped and tried to move my foot again because I had gone back to the limp. I tried explaining it all, and it didn't matter, Mary wanted it straight. I looked at her and said, "Thanks Mary." She smiled, took my hand, and we continued to the LifeSkills Room where I let go of her hand and she went into her classroom.

Later on, I was walking down to get my 6th graders ready to go home for the day, and a kindergardener came out of the Nurse's office, and said, "This is how you walk." And, he proceeded to give me a walking lesson! (I didn't even know the kid!) I played along, making both of us smile, and in the end he walked off saying, "It's not that hard!"

I stopped and smiled.

Walking Lessons.

As I've pondered these experiences, I have come to one conclusion.

God wants us just to take one step at a time.
Just one.
And to smile with each step we take.

:-)
Life.
Is.
Good.

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