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Monday, October 16, 2006

He's just a kid

Well, they both are. This is a tale of two kids.

At Mass this morning, my nephew looked at me suddenly and asked "Why do people think it's funny that someone is in a wheelchair? Why do they laugh at them?"

He uses a wheelchair some of the time because he has CP.

In Mass this morning he was not in a wheelchair.

I, of course, was sitting there in my wheelchair at the time. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a boy sitting a few aisles ahead who had turned around and was smirking in my direction and making faces .

I sighed and told my nephew very simply that some people are ignorant and, out of that ignorance, treat others badly.

He shook his head. "It's not right. It's just not right."

Some people would say that the child who was smirking is just a kid.

But let's not forget that my nephew is just a kid too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You gave your nephew a good explanation. There's no excuse for having to deal with this kind of thing over and over again, like we do every day. It gets tiring and discouraging and I can't imagine what it feels like for a kid who has to deal with the rudeness and hurt. As an adult I've sometimes made faces back!