They've already accepted you...

In my second year of high school. We've got a new student. First day in school, I was going to a classroom located on the third floor and someone was almost crawling the stairs before me. He seemed to be holding on for dear life and I was one who clutched the rails of the stairs desperately as well .. I am thinking: What an idiot ...People were rushing and pushing us on the stairs ..Well, I get to the class and sit on my usual spot first desk in front of the teacher. I loved that place, because I could see whole class from there and I could see what was written in front of me - the desk of the teachers ??

The first hour begins. The guy who crawled in front of me on the stairs is entered the room last. The teacher welcomed him, introduced him to us as someone who is coming from the class one year above us, but due to illness, he needs to repeat the year with us. Then I see it.. he has full prosthetic leg. The only place empty is next to me. He sits down, bends over the desk not looking at anyone... I can feel he is embarrassed to be here. I strike some joke...he smiles..instant bond between us. In a couple of weeks, the guy is literally "The king of the jungle"aka our class. Smart, confident, funny. Everyone loves him. He acts fearless. He had exception to drive a car earlier. We lived close to each other, he drove me home often...and I feared for my life every time, because he LOVED speeding so much. We spent some hours together while the rest of our classmates had physical exercise. I was drawing something, where I just heard thuds on the floor. I didn't look, just asked what he was doing. He replied: Jumping on my prothetic leg and waiting to fall ( he used more expressive language... but some things can't be translated enough ??) I got it... Testing the limit, while "no one" is watching.

In our final year, this classmate of mine had reoccurrence of his illness.. we were all restless, as the outlook was bad. I spoke with one teacher about this classmate and asked her how did he actually end up in our group and not in other parallel classes which we had in the year. What she said shocked me. She replied, you know Lydia, they have already accepted you ... so we thought, they'll accept him too.

It's interesting how nowadays we have so much media massage about inclusion, integration.. etc and when the opportunity showed up, the adults of that time, went with the decision to add to the group who already "accepted" one disabled, also another. Played it safe. Safe for who ?There is so much I would like to point out from here.. but I wonder how the rest of the classes who didn't have anyone (visibly) disabled in their class actually learned anything ? Yet, if they would really know the health of some other students, they would know, there was in other class someone with sever visual impairment although invisible from the outside, another cancer patient in remission .. there was anorexia, bulimia, other mental health issues etc... I wasn't the ONLY one, but I was the only one visible. So was he. At the end I am happy they included him in our class. I don't think he needed me, as much as I needed him. To this day, I wish he would sometimes sit next to me. He was wonderful friend and the only one who at that time saw world through similar lens like me. I miss him daily.

I have many ideas how I would "do inclusion". I do hope I'll be able to express it, by starting here...