Soapbox

     He interrupted his own commentary on his favorite episode of Gunsmoke because he had something important to tell me.
     “I didn’t tell you this before because, well, I wasn’t sure if you would laugh at me.”
      He explained that he has this “thing”  called a learning disability. Did I know what that is? Well because of this darn thing, he works at a place called the Community House and his job- well, he had told me he worked in Maintenance, but what he does-  he mops the floors, shovels snow off the sidewalks, stuff like that.

     It’s not the way he wanted it- he wanted a career doing something important, if anyone had asked him… but nobody did…they just got him this job, and apparently, life is just like that some times, and you don’t get to be what you want to be. And he hoped I could understand.

     I took a deep breath and said- I hope- all the right things, about  true friendship being based on who a person is, not on what they do for a living, and the importance of properly shoveled sidewalks on snowy days. And then, as conversations often go with him, suddenly we were talking about his tuba again.

      I knew 5 minutes after I met him at church camp  that Jim was mentally retarded. Well, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could miss. And having him in our campsite was a bit of a challenge for the rest of us kids, but we all adapted, because that's what nice people do, and we quickly realized he was worth it.
     He does pretty well- he went to high school, though he was 3 years older than his classmates. He even attended college briefly- though I think it was mostly to play the tuba in the marching band.
     When he calls me, the first words out of his mouth after “hello” are likely to be the same words he left off with before “goodbye” a month ago. And you have to be up for frequent conversations about his favorite television shows, and that time at camp when he noticed something the rest of us didn’t see.
     But he is fanatically devoted to his friends and we, the lucky few, invite him to our weddings, send photos of christenings and vacations. He always remembers to call on holidays, and in nearly every conversation tells me  “I just don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost ya, kid!” And I reply in kind, because his friendship is a complex and unique gift which  I cherish.

     After his parents died, I worried about what his future might hold, how he would make the adjustment. I have thought how anxious his family must sometimes be,  trying to help him walk the line between independence and safety. And yes, I knew that some people sometimes laugh at him. At camp, while he amused us daily, we made it clear to the rest of the kids that we would beat the snot out of anyone who so much as thought of laughing at him.
      But in the 36 years that I have known him, it never occurred to me that he might think I didn’t know he had a learning disability.
      Or maybe, I thought- hoped- that he didn’t know himself. I’m not sure.
     

     I am embarrassed that I never thought of it, considered that it might be a source of pain to him. After all, I myself sometimes feel like Salieri in a world of Mozarts: talented enough to be able to comprehend true brilliance when I see it, able to summon only a glow, myself.
     How much better off, I’ve thought on my gloomy days, are the ones who are so lacking in artistic vision that they are unable to see how wide the gap is between themselves and real genius. How much easier to have the fruit hanging so far above your head that it does not tempt and mock you, sweetening your fingertips but leaving your mouth bitter and empty.
      Why then had I not stopped to consider how difficult it might be to be just smart enough to understand how smart you are not? To be able to dream of the life you’d like to have, watch your friends living it, but be incapable of reaching for it as it passes you by.

      Which is worse- to be stopped, halfway up the mountain and see the heights rising~ glorious and unreachable, above you- or to have never even looked up, and just enjoy the view from where you are? Is the beauty of seeing the summit worth the pain of knowing you will never climb it?
      I guess that answer is different for different people,
 
      And I also never considered  that, through all these years, he might think he was keeping a secret from me and be burdened by that secret, believe that he was hiding a part of himself that is as obvious to me as his bushy brown hair
and his twinkling smile.
      We never discussed it- and I never considered that perhaps we should, or that he might think I would laugh if I knew. That I would laugh at him, the most sincere and genuine person I know.

      I’m not sure what hurdle I cleared in his mind recently  that made him decide that today, today I could be trusted with this great and precious truth, but I’m glad that, after 36 years, the secret is finally out.
      Because really,  none of us are as far up the mountain as we'd like to think.