Coffee, Shakespeare and Girls -- What Would You Do With 10 Years?

August 2, 2005 Patrick had just turned six...

was ready to enter kindergarten and was given sweet relief.

All treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia was complete.

No more chemo every day.

No more spinal taps to check to see if the spinal fluid was clear...

and to add a little chemo just to make sure.

No more constant blood counts.

No more agonizing over numbers of neutrophils, lymphocytes, hemoglobin.

Done.

It was a strange thing to be given such a date...and trust me, when we were given that date in 

June of 2002, it felt like a weird form of torture.

We got good at finding parks where no else played and a little boy without many white blood cells could enjoy the outdoors without being near anybody else.

We visited the beach a lot.

We went to preschool when we could...and slowly, irrevocably, the time passed.

That little boy got his chance at a cancer-free life.

*****

August 2, 2002 became known as Chillin' With Chalk.

We were uneasy about celebrating too big.

Didn't want to jinx anything.

Couldn't dare to dream too big.

So we invited friends and family to Central Park in the middle of our town and we asked them to draw any chalk picture that celebrated this great day.

We collected money for the chalk -- 50 cents a piece - and donated the money to a dinner out for the doctors and nurses and many others who were on our three year journey with us.

Watching these colorful messages of love and hope decorate our park was one of my favorite moments of that terrible journey.

It was love out loud.

Tangible.

Vibrant.

Messy.

And then August 3rd rolled by...and school supplies needed to be purchased...and laundry folded...and dinners and lunches and breakfasts made...and the days ticked by.

*****

Every August 2nd, I would hold my breath and wait for the yearly blood counts and pray.

2006 - First grade and a new baby sister

2007 - Second grade - Holy Communion

2008 - Third grade -- the beginning of trying to ride a bike and being in Miss Mindy's Musicals

2009 - Fourth grade - First Reconciliation

2010 - Fifth grade and the love of New York City begins along with Broadway - Steve, the paraeducator who is all-pro, joins your bro squad

2011 - Sixth grade and a sleep away camp and we get serious about learning to swim - 

Jack leaves for college

2012 - Seventh grade and bike riding gets real - Sarah becomes part of your dream team at school and  well, maybe our life too

2013 - Eighth grade and the love of Shakespeare takes flight -

Mary Kate leaves for college - Confirmation and official cell phone use begins

2014 - Ninth grade: new school, old friends become new again 

2015 -- bing, bing, bing

An entire decade of August 2nds...clear and free of leukemia...10 years of good health.

What has Patrick done with those precious ten years?

1) Read a lot of books.

2) Tried all sorts of new foods.

3) Visited some amazing new places and revisited old favorites.

4) Sunk deep into Shakespeare and musicals and created a stunning assortment of cast lists

5) Got involved in Special Olympics basketball and soccer - swimming on a typical team as well

6) Danced

7) Sang

8) Dreamt about proms and dates and girls and plotted way too many times on who could be his girl

9) Belly laughed at way too many fart jokes courtesy of his dad

10) Grew and grew and grew

He enjoyed the simplest of pleasures and relished them as gifts.

Cheering whenever someone in our family came home...or had a birthday...or did something of note.

He hugged you tight.

He asked how you were doing.

He looked forward to the releases of movies or shows with a calendar and a pen, 

marking the days so carefully.

In short, he got the chance to be a kid...growing into a teen.

There are moments when it hits me...that we've made it through...and although they sneak up on me, 

I still know why those tears come so easily.

It happened a few nights ago watching the play Matilda, standing up clapping in an ovation, a giant theater filled with the excitement of great music wrapping up thoughts and emotions from a great story that unified us all...and I tried to somehow send out a universal thank you note within each clap...to all of these healthy people in this theater beside me, able to stand and clap and enjoy a show...to all of the actors, all of the musicians, all of the light guys...everyone...how lucky we are.

Right here.

Right now.

Tonight, Patrick had his first cup of coffee.

He hung out with his favorite people.

He tried new things and went on an adventure.

He found time for music and dreaming.

It's been a beautiful 10 years.

10 years of mundane, trivial, annoying,

messy, vibrant, 

life.

Thank you doctors and nurses and researchers.

Thank you, universe.

Thank you.

Chillin' With Chalk 2 is set for August 22, 2015.

Meet us in Central Park...or your central park...

10 years later we have Instagram, and Facebook and Twitter and not to mention 

real life...

meet us anywhere, in any way, and share a chalk drawing to celebrate life and love and color.

Can't wait to get messy...
and fill the world with color.
For one day.

A Powerful Force For Love

Today I had Patrick's IEP (Individualized Education Plan) for his transition to high school.

I wasn't expecting too much since we had recently had another IEP meeting and pretty much set up all of the expectations for next year and planned it all out ahead of time.

This was just a more formal hand off:

You, junior high group, formally pass the torch to the high school group.

It was an intimate affair.

One school psychiatrist. One inclusion specialist from the high school. 

One junior high inclusion specialist and me.

And the person of honor: Patrick.

So we started out the meeting in the usual way.

Let's list Patrick's strengths.

Patrick, you go first.

Patrick was prepared.

Mike, his awesome inclusion specialist, had worked with him.

He listed off his reading, his love of Shakespeare, his love of drama...

and then he paused.

So the team, ever conscious of time, and the need for a steady pace, stepped in.

Mike asked pointedly: "Any more strengths, Patrick?"

Patrick was thinking about it.

I wanted to jump in and list the many, many strengths that I know he has.

But I resisted.

I distracted myself: I pondered how I would have handled this question 

asked of me in a room full of adults as a 15 year old.

I would have said way more ummmms.

[Once again, I considered how faulty this whole process was...

how contrived and forced.

What 15 year old would want to discuss his or her strengths or challenges in a room full of adults?

What adult would?

Asking a typical student to do this is hard.

Asking a teenager with a developmental disability to do this is Herculean.]

Patrick ummed for only a short second and then he hit it out of the park:

"Oh, and I'm a powerful force for love."

What on earth?

Never.

Honestly.

Ever. 

Have I said that phrase.to anyone.

There was a silence in the room.

I wasn't sure if they had heard him...but Mike did.

I agreed with Patrick and chimed in.

"Yes, he's a powerful force for love...but I'm not sure where that will go in our paperwork."

In my mind, I'm in a trance.

Powerful force for love.

Powerful force for love.

Powerful force for love.

Why, oh why, isn't that measurable?

Why does an ability to move fractions into percents seem to this audience as a greater strength?

Where's our humanity?

*****

What I love about this whole episode is that to those of us who have our days graced with someone with Down Syndrome this whole conversation doesn't seem so far-fetched.

People with Down Syndrome have a remarkable ability to keep it real.

To be candid and spot on.

They get to the heart of a situation.

They speak their minds...

without pretense or hidden agendas.

We just have to listen.

Or their genius gets overlooked...or lost...or worst of all, remains unknown.

No adult took the bait.

Patrick's comment went untouched.

Except for me.

His words just echoed. Over and over.

Powerful force for love.

Powerful force for love.

Powerful force for love.

His words became the haunting opportunity that remains largely missed in our schools.

Students with intellectual disabilities should be,

MUST BE,

included in typical classrooms...for this very reason.

THEY ARE A POWERFUL FORCE FOR LOVE.

And our classrooms need way more love.

Our typical students could sure use some love...

some acceptance...

some social, emotional acknowledgement.

Our schools need this powerful force,

way more than fractions or dates in history or grammar.

LOVE is the answer.

*****

Still, hours later, I'm hypnotized by those words.

Powerful force for love.

Powerful force for love.

Powerful force for love.

Maybe he said them just for my benefit.

They have forever changed me.

Patrick's words have become a mantra...

a challenge...

a request from the universe.

Most of all, they have become my heart's desire...

a daily affirmation...

to live more forcefully...

for love.

Let's be a powerful force for love. Today.

The Alchemy of Friendship

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately.

About new worlds...only made by the intersection of two people's paths at just the right moment.

You have to be ready.

The other person has to be willing.

Some sort of magic happens and like a chemical experiment...

where there were once two separate chemicals, now there is unity...

friendship.

Joy.

Comfort.

Supreme comfort.

The ability to just be yourself without pretense and let the friend be the same.

Such a gift.

It can't be orchestrated.

It can't be forced.

We can wish for it.

Pray for it.

Dream about it...

but like a kite catching air,

it has to have just the right angle,

just the right amount of wind,

the exact moment when majestically it soars.

*****

When you have a child with a disability, you wonder in the dark of night if that child will be able to connect and have a friend...

not someone who is nice to them.

That's too easy.

No, you dream of something deeper.

A genuine enjoyment of each other.

Shared secrets.

Inside jokes.

Laughter and lightness woven with acceptance.

Like a unicorn, this kind of friendship seems mythical.

Is it possible?

The answer is yes.

Patrick and Christopher at 6th grade camp.

These two have been friends for a long time.

They don't need much.

They find ways to laugh and have fun almost immediately.

There is a realness and a genuine joy with each other that is palpable.

There's no awkward tension of trying too hard...or wanting it too much.

No, there's just a couple of goofballs.

Sunken into the comfy couch of friendship.

Patrick and Christopher were in the same class from first grade to sixth grade.

Then, in 6th grade, Christopher moved to another school.

They were still friends but for 7th and 8th grade they rarely had a chance to connect.

This year, in 9th grade, Patrick moved over to the same school as Christopher.

They picked up where they left off.

Sharing lunch time and laughs.

I haven't been around these two really at all...

I just hear the snippets of their friendship at the dinner table.

But a few weeks ago, I had to drive both of them to a week-end adventure two hours away.

Listening to them talk in the back seat was transformational for me.

I never had the opportunity to become friends with someone with a disability when I was a kid.

I really can't imagine it.

I try and picture how I would have been...

would I have slowed down and taken the time to really see this person?

I cringe and know that the answer sure feels like no.

How did Christopher know to do this?

Are you born with a compassionate heart...

or do you build it like a drip sand castle

drip by drip

just by being submerged in a world of difference and diversity?

Like friendship, I think it is a magical alchemy...

the heart is ready and the opportunity bubbles up creating the solution needed for friendship to form.

I know this much: inclusion is part of the answer.

*****

In the back of the car, two 15 year olds talk about driving and getting licenses.

Christopher reveals that he already has his drivers' permit, 

the first step to getting a California drivers' license.

Patrick gives him the appropriate oooh's and aaah's...truthfully impressed.

He doesn't press further...but Christopher does.

He asks Patrick if he has the app on his phone to take practice written tests for driving.

When Patrick reveals that he doesn't have the app, Christopher downloads the app onto Patrick's phone and then proceeds to go through a sample test with him.

This quote:

"Really, Patrick, you can totally do this. Most of the answers are just common sense. I'll help you."

made my inner Rocky run up the steps and dance with my inner Mother Teresa...

who does this??

The answer:

a friend.

A real friend presumes competence.

A real friend supports and encourages dreams.

A real friend shows the path.

A real friend believes in you.

A real friend takes a selfie and posts it to Instagram and watches the likes pile up...

Well, I think there can be some debate on the last bit...

but this pic is the essence of real friends.

Comfortable.

Companionable.

Caring.

These two have reignited their friendship...the world is better for it.

Just like the two individuals, this moment in time will never come again.

In the Japanese culture it is called Ichigo Ichie. 

One opportunity. One encounter.

We must cherish the chances we're given for friendship.

Seize them.

Reach out.

Laugh and linger.

Try harder.

Wait and wait and wait...and reach out some more.

Friendship is too important to let slip away.

We can't explain it...

or analyze it...

but we know it's no myth and all magic.

Today I'm grateful for big hearts and kind friends,

authentic and real in their relationship.

Thank you for showing me how it's done.

Thank you for sharing a bit of the magic with me.

The Best Part of my Day

** This is my first official guest blog post.  I am writing for my friend, Rita Wirtz's blog, Reading Champs and I am both honored and a bit intimidated.  Rita and I both share a passion for reading but Rita shares her passion on her blog, with her books and in teacher education conferences...I just read...and occasionally write. :)  
But I thought I could share the best part of my day...reading with my kids right before bed. 

Thank you Rita for this opportunity! **

Snuggled in on a Saturday morning with Caroline. :)

"You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be --

I had a Mother who read to me."

--Strickland Gillilan

I grew up with a mom who read to me.

She would read magazines out loud to us on long car rides...and we would all groan...and complain and pretend we didn't want to listen...

but the view outside was boring and it was a welcome change, so we listened and learned something.

I remember my mom craning her neck and turning herself sideways so that we could see the pictures in the magazines and understand the subtleties in her voice.

She was a preschool teacher so she knew how to read out loud...

how to be suspenseful, tricky, magical and funny.

Her birthday is this week-end and I'll try to think of a present that is good enough.

A present that can come close to the gift she gave me...my love of books.

You and I both know I don't stand a chance.

All I can do is send her these words and have her know, 

really know, 

how much I valued her joy in literature, 

her big hearted tears that would come with every Erma Bombeck essay, 

her love of Snoopy's wisdom 

and Judith Viorst's tender witness to parenthood.

Her book-love so infected me that when it came time to choose places to live...I angled and finagled my world so that I could be within walking distance to our city library...my dream as a child.

It came true in adulthood.

I can walk to the library, bike to a bookstore, wander to a city bench to read and read.

It's one of my greatest joys and I have my mom to thank.

*****

Today I have four kids of my own...

and reading is a big part of our world too.

There are plenty of things I would re-do but sneaking to bed late because we're caught up in a book isn't one.

Without fail, the best part of my day is reading with my children right before bed.

It can be hard juggling bedtimes and kids' needs but it is worth every effort for those moments of connection and calm joy.

If your child is a strong independent reader...who cares?!

Don't lost those moments to read the even deeper, more suspenseful, more emotional, more messy and poignant, beautiful books of young adult literature together.

I know my kids don't probably remember any of these moments but I am going to share them here anyway...

if only as a time capsule to seal away and forever hold close.

*****

Thank you to Jack...for letting me hear you giggle over Captain Underpants in second grade.

As a teacher, I looked down on that series of books...

watching you read that book on your own and laugh out loud, my heart was turned.  

I became the best evangelist for inappropriate potty humor around.

Thank you for sharing with me Harry Potter.

I know you could have read that on your own...

but it was like the very best kept secret to share with you.

I will never forget riding bikes to get Harry Potter 3 on that summer day -- the day it was finally released -- and eagerly stopping even before we got home (!) to begin reading because we just couldn't wait one more minute.

Thank you to Mary Kate...my reluctant reader...who holds as a prize the title 

"no interest in reading anything ever" with pride...

for my tender, miraculous moment of tears over Charlotte's death in Charlotte's Web.
Smiles over Judy Moody and Molly Moon also snuck up on us. 

Later, we guiltily devoured the Twilight series (ssshhhh, never reveal to anyone our impassioned love of vampires and werewolves) and I cherish that silly series for it connected me to you.

Thank you to Patrick for the beauty in watching you learn to read.

Thank you for always being willing to sit on a lap or later lay in a bed and read.

My favorite book we have shared so far was Winn-Dixie.

Listening to that little lonely girl make friends with so many different types of people in her wonderful guileless way was just what my heart needed.

Your eagerness to find out what happened next, 

your willingness to keep reading even when your eyes ached to close

were tiny nighttime joys.

And thank you to Caroline...

who loved Dr. Seuss, Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Fancy Nancy...
but most of all, Junie B. Jones,
sassy kindergartener extraordinaire.

Making our way through that entire series 

through a whole summer will be one of my fondest memories.

Thank you for letting my heart sink into Little House in the Big Woods.

Thank you for helping me to circle my way back to the jewels of childhood:

laps, stories and time.

If you have a reluctant reader...never fear.

They really just haven't found the right story.

Try non-fiction.

Or poetry.

Or inappropriate potty humor. :)

Or just try.

Keep trying over and over.

Bring out the snacks.

The drinks.

The cozy jammies.

For when your child stumbles onto what touches his heart, 

you have given him a key.

A secret passage to handle adversity.

A staircase to find inspiration.

A path to escape the rigors of a weary world.

A way directly to the heart.

You have unfolded a map that will traverse an entire lifetime.

I should know.

My mom read to me.

*****

And if you love to read, please join the Twitter chat called #Read4Fun 

every Sunday at 4pm Pacific Time.

You will be amazed at how many people share your joy.

You'll get book ideas.

Life ideas.

Fun ideas

...and meet the sweetest people.

Look for me: @inclusionchick and Rita @RitaWirtz

Being Nice Isn't Nice

My heart is so heavy today.

Discouraged.

Worn down.

Feeling like I was scaling a mountain and I fell...way, way down...and I'm stuck.

I recently listened to this podcast about expectations.

It is amazing and terrifying and profound.

It tells the story of a man who lost his eyes to cancer before he turned two...both eyeballs removed.

Completely blind.

Only, not really.

Because, like all two year olds, he adjusted.

He intuitively started clicking and making noises to echo-locate in his world...just like bats.

He got so good at it that he uses a cane as a very minimal guide often just holding it up by his side.

He can ride a bike.

Yes, no lie.

This blind man, rides a bike on his own by clicking as he goes.

He maneuvers through his world, very capably. 

He has his freedom...

but because this is so rare for blind people, he goes around the world explaining how it can be done.

Proving all of us who don't know any better, wrong.

So, all of us, with our über compassionate hearts who want to reach out and hold a blind person by the elbow and guide him along, take it all down a notch right now. 

It's not necessary.

What does Daniel Kish need from us?

Opportunity.

An open mind.

Equality.

To be seen.

*****

I have a son with Down Syndrome.

His name is Patrick.

He is 15 years old -- capable and reliable and smart.

He's someone who always knows where his cell phone is -- much better than me in that regard --

and charges it up faithfully.

Patrick, as you may know, loves theater and Shakespeare and being in plays. He's been in over twenty performances of all kinds.  He memorizes scripts; writes his own scripts; plans cast lists and eagerly awaits the latest soundtrack from his latest Broadway favorite.

I know that's not the message that most of the world gets when you find out about 

Down Syndrome...but it's the truth.

Yes, he needs to be supported in his learning.

But in his living?

He is fine. Thank you very much.

He just needs to be seen.

He needs to be given opportunities and support.

But isn't that what we all need?

Tonight was the play that Patrick has been preparing for since early November.

He didn't get a part so he was allowed to do tech.

He was excited to be in charge of a spotlight.

The only problem was...he wasn't in charge of a spotlight.

He was in charge of following along in the script and cueing the student who was using the spotlight.

Ummm...that's not a job.

We all know that the student doing the spotlight knew the cues and needed no reminding.

I am cringing thinking of Patrick taking this job so very seriously, offering the cues, while the student who was doing the spotlight just played along.

That job which was no job sent a devastating message of incompetence and unreliability to every single student performing in the play...and every audience member...and every faculty member.

That message isn't one of inclusion.

It's one of exclusion.

A message of being set aside.

A message of:

you're only good enough to breathe the same air...not actually work on the same play.

Ironically, the play is called Metamophoses.

So much change and growth could have happened.

Should have happened.

But people who had very good eyesight turned out to be unable to see. Blind to the opportunity.

People with very big hearts and genuine concern for students tried to be nice.

But nice isn't nice.

Reinforcing stereotypes is never nice.

Lowering your expectations is not compassionate.

The result of these good intentions: people in the margins stay right there.

*****

I don't know how you help someone to see.

How you change a perception.

All I can do is show up with my kid and hope for the best at every opportunity.

He knows what to do.

He just needs a chance...

a chance to be seen.

God bless Patrick.

Who took his job that wasn't a job and did his level best.

That's all you can ask of your child.

But I can ask the world to do better.

I can ask the world to blink.

Rub your eyes.

Pause for one minute and contemplate who you are not seeing.

Who do you overlook -- even with good intentions?

Who sits on the margins of your world?

Can you expand your view of the horizon a little bit more?

Who can you reach out to and lift up?

World, open your eyes.

You are missing out.

******

*UPDATE*

Sometimes, very rarely, things tie up with a bow.

They circle around and make sense.

This is one of those times.

After an early morning email to the director with many of these same thoughts enclosed, 

the director, kindly, thoughtfully, responded with his eyes wide open.

He had a second chance and he used it.

Tonight, the last night of the play, Patrick worked the spotlight.

Someone else read the script.

He stood on a cafeteria table...

"it gave me balance" he delightfully noted,

and used the pink or blue lens and shone that spotlight right where it needed to go.

He did it.

Awareness + second chances = opportunity

I'm grateful for a director who was willing to think about it.

Grateful for kindess.

Grateful for grace in the ordinary.

All my heart can say is thank you.

We Long To Belong

 

Sitting in my seminar this week with my student teachers we talked about how to manage kids in the classroom.  

We discussed the three guest speakers we had had the week before --

excellent teachers from all walks of life.

All three of them kept repeating the same message.

Even though they were from different cities and from different schools with different populations of students.

They said it many different ways but it all came down to this:

The student must feel unconditional acceptance from you.

The students need to feel loved and connected...

...and then, said so simply by one of my student teachers, this gem revealed itself:

we long to belong.

I've been rolling that around in my head for a few days...

smoothing it over like a favorite blanket...

petting it...

visiting those simple rhyming words...

and letting them sink way down deep.

No duh.

We know this at such a basic level that we overlook it.

As parents.

As friends.

As family members.

As community members.

As a couple.

And yes, as teachers.

I've been working on a little dream of my own recently and it has everything to do with belonging.

Everything about feeling worthy and celebrated and accepted.

We long to belong.

Every child should feel worthy.

Every child should feel cherished and treasured and wanted...

especially at school....

most especially if we say we're Catholic and work to have our children attend Catholic school.

Parents of children with disabilities are a special group.

They've been separated and isolated through almost their entire parenting journey.

That feeling of isolation can be crushing.

Not to mention lonely.

These families have most definitely felt like outsiders standing at the gate.

They knock on the door...but they just aren't sure it will open.

It's time we threw the door wide open.

We long to belong.

Yep, folks, right here.right now. we are working on full inclusion in Catholic schools.

We are supporting families, educators, administrators and priests or other religious with our 

vision and hope.

 Turns out belonging has a name -- fullinclusionforcatholicschools.org  

There's no entrance fee.

No golden ticket required.

You belong just by being you.

You are welcomed and wanted.

Come on in.

God's Greatest Gifts

I don't know what you hope for, long for or dream about.

I can just share with you the dreams in my heart.

Ever since I was a young, young child I dreamt of being a mom.

I know this is TMI and I know Mary Kate will be cringing as I share this...but, I got my period super late in life -- 15 years old -- sophomore in high school -- in other words, ancient.

Before that time, I knew that if you didn't have a period, you couldn't have a child.

Trust me, my reproductive knowledge was greatly limited but that I knew way down deep.

So my prayer for years was, I kid you not:

Please, please please God, let me get my period.

Let me have kids.

They were always called kids in my adolescent mind.

Always plural.

Not snuggly babies.

Or baby dolls.

Kids...and I wanted plenty.

I guess God knew my heart because he helped me find the right guy and gave me the joy of four great kids.

Four.

That still seems a bit greedy on my part.

I never thought it would be four...but I learned with my very first pregnancy -- which ended with a miscarriage -- that I was most definitely not in any sort of control.

These four are by far my greatest gifts.

My biggest joy.

My purpose.

They are the thread that helps everything else make sense.

I see my children in every child I encounter.

I see every mother in me.

I see every family in mine.

That separation that existed between me and the rest of the world felt a little less with Jack and Mary Kate but it fully disappeared with Patrick's presence.

Suddenly, the marginalized were part of me.

The "broken".

The disabled.

The slow.

The people that others look away from...the people that others don't discuss...that are okay to terminate...those people were now part of me.

There was no way to love Patrick and not see them too.

I look at the way Patrick has changed me and I think of God's gifts.

My dream as a teen...so limited and finite...busted wide open with the realness of His gifts.

It was way better than any dream of mine.

How could I know what to wish for?
Little, sweet Caroline?
How could I know to ask for such wonder?

I never could have imagined it.

Four busy, funny, quirky, messy kids.
Old and young.
Fast and slow.

All I can say is thank you.
Thank you for my kids.
Thank you for the joy that comes with
loving,
 guiding,
 watching,
 hoping,
fighting with and for...

and for the heartbreak.

For in feeling so deeply we get close to what really matters.
This, right here, this moment, this meal, this day is what counts.

Thank you, God, for your greatest gifts.
Put my tiny dreams to shame, no doubt.

To Thine Own Self Be True

The guy likes Shakespeare.

I've told you that before...over here.

He walks around with a beat up MacBeth book in his hand and yes, he has huge chunks of it memorized.

For his birthday, his wise and thoughtful aunt got him a similar version of Hamlet.

It's called Shakespeare Made Easy.

On the left hand side of the page is the original text.  

On the right hand side is the translation or an easier version.

So, he's been walking around for a few weeks with Hamlet in hand...in restaurants, carrying it to speech,  thrown into my bike basket.  I had a friend who saw him in the waiting room at speech reading Hamlet come up to me and kind of ask out loud if this was real.

Did he like Hamlet?

YES.

He does...really.

As soon as she thought it was real, she turned to Patrick and started to dish...

who was his favorite character?  

What did he think of Hamlet?

We had stumbled onto another lover of the British playwright.

I think that as a way to diffuse, explode and crack away the myth that people with Down Syndrome are stupid, we should just have them carry around some texts of Shakespeare.

It blows people's minds.

Like looking in a fun house mirror they just aren't sure of what they see.

We like to place people in tiny, little, immovable boxes.

It's more comfortable that way...

but sometimes they don't fit in.

Sometimes the stereotype cracks.

People have to stop and rethink certain givens that they've trusted their whole life.

And if they stop and rethink that one, who knows, maybe there are a whole bunch of other certainties that just aren't that certain any more.

Powerful stuff.

But only if you're given the chance...

only if the opportunity is seized.

So, we took a chance and signed Patrick up with other teen-age Shakespeare fans for a two week camp.

It was all day long with typical kids and real actors and directors who are staging some Shakespeare for a festival in our town.

He got up each day energized and excited to go...but wouldn't tell us too much.

He didn't get the script for Much Ado About Nothing until midweek of the second week.

What had they been up to all this time??

Patrick got the part of Benedick for Act I and Don Pedro for Act II.

That, right there, was something he'd never considered before...

he fiddled with that idea, resisted it for a few days, but gradually came to know that you could play two parts.

The play of Much Ado About Nothing was going to be presented on Friday, 

just two days after getting the script.

Patrick began memorizing, repeating and rehearsing in his room...

but he didn't have enough time.

Thursday night he was worried.

He was used to knowing his lines (and everybody else's) -- he couldn't believe he wouldn't be ready.

But the joy of being a part of the play and a part of this group motivated him to accept the truth and just use the script when needed.

So today at 3pm, Caroline and I showed up for a little Shakespeare.

I'm always on pins and needles at things like this...you just never know how it's going to go.

But this was a group who shared a passion.

A group where he spoke the language.

A group where he belonged.

He didn't have to earn his way in...he just had to love Shakespeare and that was good enough.

The little play was a whole lot more...it had improv, movement, singing some explanation of who Shakespeare was as a person...and yes the entirety of 

Much Ado About Nothing.

Patrick was a part of everything.

Before my very eyes I watched a metamorphosis of unsure junior high kid into full high schooler...

confident and true to himself.

I was teary thinking of my friends with young children with Down Syndrome who continue to be denied entrance into this world of acceptance and inclusion.

If only those naysayers could have seen the improv!

I'm so grateful to a group of actors who have created a sanctuary for kids who love Shakespeare and allowed each teen the freedom to come as you are and take away all that you can.

For costumes for the show the kids were supposed to wear black.

We missed the memo.

Patrick came home the night before the show and created the costume he thought would work.

It wasn't black...

but I got no last minute phone call...

no rescuing the situation...

no tweaking or freaking out.

It didn't matter.

No one seemed to care, 

and the production went off without a hitch...

so refreshing.

Shakespeare with a chill pill.

And after the play came this quote,  "You can go now.  I'll meet you at home."

Full teen.

Tonight, I am grateful to the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble.

I'm grateful to this group of actors, directors and musicians who share their passion and work to make Shakespeare come alive.

Grateful for their hard work and ability to engage with teens of all sorts.

I'm grateful to live in a town that is accepting and tolerant and inclusive.

I'm grateful to an 8th grade teacher who taught Shakespeare to an entire group of middle schoolers, never dumbing it down or diluting it, thrilling them with the action and the language...

and lighting a fire.

Most especially, I am grateful to the Bard of Avon...

the witty, the insightful, the tragic and comic Shakespeare...

who has touched the heart and soul of my son hundreds of years later.

There's no doubt that Shakespeare has shaped my son...who would have guessed?