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When they made trips for
therapy in Dallas, Mark was still small and could sit on Rhonda’s lap in
her chair while she was pushed into her therapist. At this time he was old
enough to run along side as we bumped, bumped along over the rough Bermuda
lawn around the old school building.
This classroom her young
teacher had established was their’s only for the morning. In the afternoon
she had to give the room up to another class. So she could have all day
with the children Marsha Palmatary agreed to take them to an upstairs room
The steps to that were wide and steep. She was undaunted, though. She and
four other students took each sides of the chair, the back and the brace
across the front and together they all carried Rhonda up the steps so she
could stay with them.
The little group of
children were like a fire fly that flickered and sputtered, here and there
and all through the darkness of the world. It glowed a sweet message,
distracting all society from the sorrowful thought that there simply was
no hope for these children.
Marsha had planned a field
trip, a trip to a pecan grove. The turning of the trip into a learning
experience was fun to watch. Gallon sized plastic bottles became their
buckets for carrying their harvest. The mother’s contributed, wieners,
marshmallows and hot chocolate. They brought along sticks made from coat
hangers to roast the marshmallows and wieners. A heavy tarpaulin they
struggled to pull under one of the trees. I began to wonder if all the
work was worth the effort.
“Mrs. Flood!” One of the
children showed me a rock and asked, “Is this a pecan?” I knew then, yes,
it was worth the effort and more.
The sleeping giant called
Special Education yawned and stretched like Gulliver in his travels. He
was looking all about at all the little people and realizing he had not
been aware they were even there. |
