Read That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister for Free Online

light going on, he rose quickly and whispered, “Don’t you ever turn a light on like that again!”
    Irene slept blissfully through this scene, but my pain was already so great at losing my childhood home and my willow treethat Dad’s anger left me doubled up in my bed, weeping, my head and heart protected under my covers.
    Looking back on it now, I am sure that he was embarrassed that I found him on his knees, so vulnerable, asking for help.
    He’d never admit it, but I think his answer came very quietly. Because only a few days later, Dad took action.

Childhood’s End
     
    L etter to the Editor, Salt Lake Tribune , September 1952
I am a parent of a mentally retarded girl, six years old. I plan to keep her at home, but I want her to learn as much as she is capable of learning. I find there are no programs for her in the Salt Lake Valley. If you are a parent with a similar problem, and would like to form a group to begin a day care center, please call me at 35644.
    Richmond T. Harris
     
    Most days that first September of junior high, I would come home from school to a babysitter tending Irene, as Mom and Bam were often off to their lunch and bridge games. The phone would be ringing off the hook.
    “Hello? Is this the home of Mr. Harris?”
    “Yes,” I would answer, pulling out the big pad of paper where I was keeping names and phone numbers.
    “My child is mentally retarded. I have never said this to anyone before.” Then the sobbing would begin. I would wait until it subsided, and then I would say, “My dad wants me to take down your name and phone number, and he’ll call you back tonight. They’re going to have a meeting. He wants you to come.”
    “Oh, bless you, my child. Thank God someone had the courage to put it out there in the paper!”
    By the time my father called the meeting, he had fifty names.
    They met at the State Capitol Building. When they finished telling their stories to each other, they cried, they laughed, and they hugged each other in the relief of finding others in the same boat. They resolved to pool their money, find some space to rent, hire a teacher, and open a day care center. They organized into the Salt Lake County Association for Retarded Children. Within a few weeks, they had rented a small, rundown, vacant clubhouse on the grounds of Fairmont Park. On Saturday mornings, everyone pitched in to clean it up, paint it, and get it ready for their children. All the families helped, including brothers and sisters. I remember sweeping the floor while Dad measured spaces for worktables. Mothers and sisters washed the windows. Irene and the other children who would attend the center played outside in the park.
    We didn’t know that simultaneously, all over the country, day care centers were being created by other parents of children with mental disabilities. In fact, other states had a two-year jump on us. In 1950, forty people from thirteen states, all of them veterans of opening day care centers in their own towns, had already met in Minneapolis and formed the National Association for Retarded Children. They felt that it was time to “stop agonizing and start organizing.” What they accomplished is the stuff of legend.
    If Irene would never read, so be it; but my parents would never give up helping her to be the best that she could be. And at last, she had somewhere to go every day, as other children did. She could meet new friends and learn new skills. She would have a happy life in the community.
    Thanks but No Thanks
     
    Okay, here’s one: A man goes to get a taxicab, and he sees this poor heavy woman struggling in the door of the cab. She is so obese that she is stuck, with her back out the door. He puts his hand on her back to help her, and with all his strength he finally succeeds in getting her into the cab, whereupon she turns around, reaches out the window, and hits him with her purse.
    “But madam,” he says, “I was trying to help you get in!”
    “In!” she