This popped into my inbox today, it may be a bit painful to read but hold your incredulity for later and we’ll have a think about this one.
What would you do? You make the choice. Don't look for a punch line,
there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made
the same choice?
At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled
children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that
would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the
school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not
interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done
with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other
children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where
is the natural order of things in my son?'
The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay,
physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an
opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it
comes in the way other people treat that child.'
Then he told the following story:
Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew
were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me
play?' Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want
someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that
if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed
sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in
spite of his handicaps.
Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not
expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for
guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the
eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him
in to bat in the ninth inning.'
Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put
on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and
warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being
accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a
few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth
inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even
though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in
the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father
waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning,
Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded,
the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be
next at bat.
At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to
win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew
that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how
to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.
However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing
that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in
Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay
could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung
clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to
toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung
at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.
The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder
and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay
would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's
head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and
both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!' Never
in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.
He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' Catching his breath,
Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it
to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right
fielder had the ball ... the smallest guy on their team who now had
his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown
the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the
pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high
and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base
deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward
home.
All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'
Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help
him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run
to third! Shay, run to third!'
As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators,
were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to
home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the
grand slam and won the game for his team.
'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his
face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and
humanity into this world'.
Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having
never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and
coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero
of the day!
AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of
jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes
to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude,
vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public
discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and
workplaces.
If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that
you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who
aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message. Well,
the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a
difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day
to help realize the 'natural order of things.' So many seemingly
trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do
we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up
those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the
process?
A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's
least fortunate amongst them.
You now have two choices:
1.. Delete
2. Forward
May your day, be a Shay Day.
Of course my first though was delete this obvious horse-shit, but then I got thinking, where’s the angle. I mean pardon my cynicism but generally stories like this end with a link to a donation site so I googled the author, more of that later.
E-mails like this annoy me. Their sycophantic over the top over-tones just make me want to reach for the barf bucket and exclaim “Sure! in my foot-tapping, get on with it, patented sigh of incredulity”. I’m all for Rudy and the little engine that could but this story is just a bit too far for me arriving into work on a Monday morning with my logistical processes in hoc to the Saturday night before. What really pissed me off was the sheer patronising tone of the whole thing. I felt like Shay’s memory had been raped. Shay wasn’t a hero, he was an object of pity lumbering around those bases while the noble players overthrew the balls. Imagine him tripping around the bases in half gait while everyone high fives each other in the stands, hey, look at us bringing joy to this little handi-cap kid. Woo-hoo. And it doesn’t stop there, Shay passes away from a mysterious illness, writers cramp probably, going out in a blaze of glory just one short paragraph later.
But Shay got me thinking, I guess that was the point. In particular this little ditty.
A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's
least fortunate amongst them.
This is a bastardised version of an old English adage I’ve heard before that you can judge a man by how he treats his servants. It’s probably as old as time itself, how a Roman treats his slaves etc. Well let’s hold hands and have a look at how we, as a people have treated the mental and physically handicapped. At the outset I want to emphasise I have no particular expertise or familiarity with this subject and I’m probably as bigoted as the next man.
The Spartans casually tossed disabled children into a chasm on Mount Taygetos. They weren’t the only ones, the Greeks and the Romans also practised infanticide on the young disabled. These children were seen as cursed by the Gods and I think times may have been a bit leaner to support a child who may not have been able to support themselves. It’s hard to judge these societies by today’s standards so I won’t even try, suffice to say it happened.
What we can judge by today’s standards is the systematic foced sterilisations of the disabled with Good old Uncle Sam leading the way before the Nazi’s got in on the act and carted them all off to be “liquidated”
This wasn’t an isolated event- there is a whole school of thought devoted to these subjects. It’s called Eugenics and it’s members may disturb you. H. G. Wells, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, William Keith Kellogg, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, and Sidney Webb. I’m telling you, it was all the rage in the roaring twenties. Yes that’s right, the guy that invented Corn Flakes was a bigoted little shit. The US president for whom the Teddy bear was named after was all for trimming the genetic fat.
Every society has to battle with questions of morality. With physically handicapped people it’s simply a matter of supplying the goods. If society has enough means to support them, well it should and it shall. Every mother loves her child. As Christy Brown put it he was just a person trapped in a body that didn’t work. Now, the bit that leads to disagreement are the severely mentally handicapped. Unfortunately for a long time in society such people were segregated, locked away and forgotten about. Personally, I believe this is wrong but I think some objectivity is what this examination needs. Objectively do such people contribute to society? Can they hunt, or work, or exercise any function that brings back to the fold.
Subjectively one could argue that they bring light and love and joy to those that love them. Is that enough, I think it is but do you? It’s a moral issue and one that has divided people for eons and not one I am going to magically conjure any answers to. Ireland hosted the special Olympics and this topic was in the limelight. Reading the opinion pages and letters to the editors one swang between “celebrations of life” and “grotesque matinee of disfigured condescension”. I think if you went and asked those athletes did they enjoy the experience I have no doubt that they did, and they may have developed socially interacting with their fellow athletes. The question is to be examined then, Is their life worth less by their disability be it mental or physical? Are we entitled to draw a distinction between the two? Are all men really created equal. No, but they should be.
Anyway before I get drawn into a circular debate with myself and banish myself to Hell I’m going to go back to the author.
Google brings me EJ Nolan
EJ is a bit of a jack of all trades, I suppose we could loosely file him under “Media chancer”. I found a Bio that I have no doubt was written by “Ed” himself.
Mr. Nowiski as he used to be known before his ethnic name got in the way of his burgeoning international career, apart from having a face for radio and I quote
EJ is writer and producer for Die Laughing Mysteries and the Ringmaster for the Annual Circus of the Stars held in front of Houston City Hall during the Houston Children's Festival in collaboration with the Nerveless Nocks 7th generation Circus Family.His jingles for Sun & Ski Sports and others are currently airing nationally. In his spare time he has written and produced a series of Educational Films on Substance Abuse for Brain Trust Films.
Here’s the bit that grabbed my attention though.
EJ is married to Deborah, Artistic Director of Dionysus Theatre, a theatre troupe for disabled and able-bodied teens and young adults. It was founded in memory of their son, Dustin who died of cancer at age 15 in 1997. They have another son Skyler, who is attending the Guthrie Theatre BFA program at the University of Minnesota.EJ, Deborah and Skyler all performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in the Summer of 2004 to celebrate the passing of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
So Ed’s son, Dustin, died of Cancer aged 15. This puts a new spin on my hereto disregard for E.J’s little fortune cookie fairytale. I can emphasis for his loss and I have to wonder was Dustin disabled? It’s starting to resemble a soap opera here.
I’m reaching for an emotional response and all I have is sadness for poor E.J’s tale. I think that the little proverb of the disabled kid that hit the winner, well, it didn’t happen. Firstly the kid wouldn’t get a shot on that team, never mind at bat to hit the winner. It’s a nice story in the circumstances, bittersweet but we all know deep down that poor Shay wouldn’t have a hope. I think maybe Ed wrote that fairytale for himself. Writing a new memory to be disseminated to spark his own Disney fairytale, but Ed fucked it up. He went too far. In reality Shay would have been happy to swing and miss. There’s nobility in trying, regardless of success but Ed’s been sucked into the American dream and Shay has to hit the winner and we all cry “Foul”. I guess I’m saddened that such an over the top story is reflective of our own attitudes to the disabled. I’d be happy to have Shay on my team and who gives a shit if he strikes out. Why should he be judged on able bodied standards. Why can’t Shay be judged on Shay’s standards, but I know the answer. I’m reminded of Van Martel’s life of Pi where the investigator is given the incredible story and the truth and the fantasy goes into the book. Sometimes it’s better to lie to ourselves and pretend we believed it all along
