Feb. 20, 1995
We talked weekly about children as we sat in the waiting room. She had a lot to say about her grandson who has lived with her this past year. She had rescued him from an institution where he had been sent to be “fixed.”
He had been fixed, all right. Grandma thought she could do a better job. His supervisor at the institution agreed. “That is one kid who is not going to get lost in the system. He is lucky to have someone to fight for him.”
His parents are gone. He misses them and wishes things were different.
His grandmother understands, but she tells him, “You just show them that you made it without them.”
He has a good start toward doing just that. “Girl, you would not recognize him now compared to when he came to live with us. The first few months he grew at least six inches. His whole face has changed. He says “Grandma, I’m happy.”
(Some studies say that his spurt of growth reflects his
happiness.)
The fight to give her grandson a chance to be normal is far from over. He is in special ed, taking remedial courses. His grandmother thinks he got there because, “he learned to act differently.”
“Take his reading. I have him read to me every day, so I know how well he reads. He remembers everything he reads. But the teacher called me in one day and said, ‘We have to do something about his reading.’ Then she began talking with these long pauses between words, to show how he had to figure out each word.
“I looked at that teacher, ‘Have him come in here with that reading book.”‘
He came with the book.
“Read what you read in class today.” the teacher asked.
Grandson looked across the room at his grandmother’s face. He knew that “no-nonsense” look on her face.
He began reading – without hesitation, without long pauses or stumbling over words. As he whizzed through the pages, the teacher’s mouth dropped open.
The grandmother turned to the teacher, “Send him back to his class now.”
There were no more conferences about reading.
Grandma had him stay in the same grade this year to give him a chance to catch up with himself. She wants him to work his way out of remedial classes before he reaches high school. Recently he was mainstreamed into his first class. His grades in that class pulled up the grades from the remedial courses.
He shrugs, “There isn’t as much noise in the regular class. I can think better. “It isn’t all study, his grandfather takes him places and his grandmother enrolled him in skating lessons for coordination and fun.
He wishes he could go more often.
This past year with his grandparents has been a one of growth, discipline and encouragement. It has also been a year of learning to live outside of an institution working toward a normal life, a year of having them care enough to fight for him and with him. Because, if his grandparents have anything to do with it, he will be “fixed” enough to be more than one more kid lost in institutional life.