Upon Their Hands They Will Carry you

Pecking at the Weak One

Meanwhile, Mark was taking in stride every slight and sling coming toward him. Racial issues comes from both sides when a person is half of one and half of the other. He for the most part, was learning how to deal with whatever came up. All I could do was constantly remind him that this is not a perfect world and all we could do was to be patient until The Great Creator brought us perfection. Mark seemed to be able to understand.

There was nothing to educate me for the way a family around the disabled person can be targeted. To this day I don’t understand why it happens. The truth is that everything is usually done in such a subtle way, no one can know what is happening. Was it a mean way of thinking? Did they feel justified in pecking at the weak one just as chickens will pick another to death if there is a fault with it?

Laws can be passed, but then there are those who can not directly attack the disabled person then turn on family members who are around the defenseless one. This situation might have been a little of all things and then, it wasn’t when integration was being easily practiced either.

No amount of laws changed the attitude of the general public. This had to come with time.

By this time we were totally out of the system. Home schooling Kay, my youngest, was a choice I made because of my ever, undependable health. With working at home I could devote all my time to her in a one to one effort. All we had was each other but, fortunately, that was all we needed. A sense of urgency for seeing my children educated was upon me and I make no apologies for that. What else could I have done? I just didn’t possess the strength to take on all that we had worked through for my son. The running back and forth, sports events, worrying through all the in’s and out’s of high school hiatus. Physically I couldn’t do it.

Home schooling wasn’t an elective it was a necessity. As it turned out the experience was so fine. Rhonda’s learning had gaps in it and she was involved in working with Kay while using the manuscript we took out from Calvert school in Baltimore, Maryland.

Many hours were spent with the two pouring over lessons.

The years saw Kay graduating with her Master’s degree summa Cum laude, distinctive highest honors.

Mark worked in the hay meadows of the ranchers in the area and often came in so tired, the boy would shower and then drop in bed.

"That blasted old Mockingbird! What is his problem?" Mark might be heard to complain in the early morning but then off he would go back to the hayfields with only a mouthful of something or another available along with a slug of milk.

After he was gone I stepped into the bathroom for my shower and in the middle of the tub was a box, electric fan. It was obvious that it had burned, even the plastic blades were melted.

"Kay!" I wiggled one of her feet just as my Native American grandmother always woke me. "Do you know why there is a burned fan in the bathroom tub?

"I threw it there last night. It caught on fire while Mark was asleep and I smelled it burning. I picked it up and tossed the whole thing under the shower and turned the water on the blaze," she sleepily informed me and then turned over to go back to sleep."

"I’m not getting up!" Kay mumbled. "Too early for me. That’s for Mark."

After high school Mark worked to get contractor’s electrical licenses in two states. His work has taken him over several states. Rodney helped him study for his licenses plus Mark worked with his Dad while Rod had his own business as an electrician.

"Let me put a band-aide on that cut," I once told him.

When I saw his calloused hands a different feeling of sadness came over me. These were the hands of a boy but really the hands of a hard working man.

http://homeschool.calvertschool.org/