Circa 1966, somehow my 12-year old self learned that a children’s home for mentally and physically disabled children were asking for volunteers to spend time with the residents.
These children ranging from newborns to older adults (who were only minimally mentally developed) rarely had visitors.
Of course, I volunteered. Mother dropped me off and picked me up after about a 2-hour stay. Nearly 60 years later, I can recall that day with such clarity it would almost say no time at all has passed.
There was a little girl about 5 years old who had the most beautiful, wide smile and bright eyes who immediately “claimed” me all to herself. We sang a couple of songs together and played. She talked non-stop and smiled so big her eyes almost disappeared.
Before long, someone came in and wanted to take a picture of the children. I moved to the back of the room with the rest of the staff and other visitors, but my new little friend wouldn’t have it any other way except that she and I were sitting in the middle of the front row on our knees with her on her knees in front of me. She had taken my hands and wrapped them around her to make it look like I was holding her.
I would give anything now to have that picture!
Of course, my 14-year-old brother, who was not mean spirited against those children, still couldn’t miss an opportunity to use it against me when a subsequent newspaper edition carried a story about the Home with that enlarged picture. The picture had not identified me as a visitor, and it appeared that I was also a resident.
I smarted back at him for being so mean, but I knew that it didn’t matter to me that the picture seemed to put me in a very different light. I was proud to have been that little girl’s friend for that little while. at 12 years old, I had no power to visit or even knew that I could or anything like that, but I thought about her a lot.
