Obvious Limitations, Hidden Potential

Summary:
From the book, "Break Out: Finding Freedom When You Don't Quite Fit The Mold," a modern literary memoir of 51 short stories about what it means to be presumed different.

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"... A horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight."
Rossiter Worthington Raymond
A Commentary Prayer

"I saw you come out of the supermarket, pushing a cart full of groceries," Mrs. Barth shouted. Her shrill voice rose above the sharp squawks of the accordion. "You put the groceries in the back seat of the car and then got in and drove away -- all by yourself."

To show I was listening and understood, I nodded, surprised and amused that the incident impressed her so much that she had to describe it to me in the middle of a neighborhood wedding dance.

"I was so surprised," Mrs. Barth continued. "I didn't know you could drive."

I offered another nod. That's all I could do. The polka music bounced off the beams of the town hall as couples strutted and stomped on the hardwood floor. Any reply in my fractured speech would have gotten lost among the tuba notes, even though I was sitting next to her along a bench tucked against the wall that eventually led to the bar.

"Jim's been driving for seven years now," my mother, sitting on the other side of Mrs. Barth, replied during a bed of relatively smooth tuba bars. "In fact, he drives 50 miles a day to and from work."

"Oh, I didn't know he had a job."

"He works at Wisconsin Dairies and does their newsletter," my mother offered tersely, also starting to shout above the din. "So, he drives to work everyday!" Mrs. Barth exclaimed, glancing back at me in disbelief. "Amazing..."

I managed a weak smile and re-stacked my Canadian crutches neatly underneath the bench. Yes, perhaps it was amazing, now that I began to surmise what was probably going through her mind.

Mrs. Barth's daughter, Sheri, had been my Sunday School teacher 18 years before -- when I was 10 and still trying to walk without the support I found out later that crutches provided and that I needed. Every Sunday, as the Sunday School children filed into the front pews of the sanctuary, I would find myself groping for some support, and Sheri would eventually, with reluctance, offer her arm to me.

I would wrap my arm through hers and walk down the aisle with her. I sought the balance she provided but, at the same time, knew I looked childish to others because I needed to walk, like a five-year-old, beside my teacher.

And, I knew that, as a self-conscious high school student, Sheri dreaded the attention I drew to her during those few but telling seconds which punctuated my spasticity. Her brown eyes would become cold. She would stop chewing her Double Mint gum, and her lips, generously highlighted with passion pink lipstick, would become rigid.

I imagined the fights she perhaps had with her mother at home -- all because of me. After all, what teenager would want to go through this humiliating experience Sunday after Sunday? And, what mother wouldn't insist that her daughter make the best of the situation?

I could see why Mrs. Barth kept glancing at me periodically as she and my mother chatted during breaks in the music. How could a boy who could not walk unaided down the church aisle drive a car, graduate from college or hold a job?

Sheri's pout haunted me for years, but I never saw her again after she graduated from high school and I went to college. I assumed she ended up as a secretary in some office where she still chewed gum and wore passion pink lipstick. Or, maybe she outgrew the gum, kept the lipstick and became a receptionist.

The band stopped playing, and I leaned over to Mrs. Barth, not realizing I didn't have to shout as loud or get as close to her now as I did when the tuba player was in full blast.

"Where is Sheri now?" I shouted.

"Oh, she and husband are in Chicago. He's a dentist, and she's a psychotherapist," Mrs. Barth said with pride in her eyes. "They have two children, eight and 10."

I managed to get out the only word that came to mind.

"Amazing ..."

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