I found out today that an old friend I haven’t seen in many years has passed away.
Steve was one of the first people I met in my neighborhood in San Antonio when we first moved there. I was thirteen and Steve was nineteen or twenty, but he would always be younger than me. Steve was friendly and he used to hang out with me and my brother Jim, shoot baskets, ask for a soda, and talk about the things he loved. He nicknamed my brother “Jazzbo” and we have never figured out why, but now and then we still call Jim that, after all these years. 🙂
Steve and I used to head down to a local Episcopal church every Saturday where they held a weekly gathering of other special adults. This was years and years ago, but I still remember it fondly. We would sing songs together, endure one of what I have come to call “Faddah Phil’s Heretical Homilies” – delivered by an extremely large, chainsmoking priest named Phil – and then go bowling. This routine was exactly the same every week, and I enjoyed it immensely. If you’ve never hung around with mentally retarded and Down Syndrome adults you don’t know what you’re missing; they can be some of the sweetest people you’ve ever met.
A long time before Blogs were invented I used to keep a private “blog” of sorts in a word document. In October of 1990 I jotted down some thoughts on my experiences with Steve and his friends at the Episcopal church where we gathered for our weekly singing, heresy, and bowling adventures. This was written, incidentally, the week after Steve’s dad passed away. It is a fragmentary piece of journaling; just some of my thoughts at the time. I leave you with them.
St. Davids never changes. I went today and really enjoyed it. Eddie and Ricky are almost 40 – their birthdays are next month. Time is interesting. We have this group of retarded adults who I have known off and on for the last 5 years, and they never change! They are all 35-45 year old children, and they continue to get the same scores in bowling, to have the same mannerisms. I get tickled at Johnny. He contorts his body in all sorts of strange ways as the ball travels down the lane. He’s doing what we all do sometimes, thinking we have control of something after it has left our hands, thinking that if we contort our bodies in certain ways the pins will fly and we will have a strike! There’s something profound in that.
Then there’s Charlie – a fairly severly (do those words go together?) retarded adult who can’t talk very well and who seems to always have a cigarette in his mouth. It’s as if the cigarette is a part of his body. He kind of looks like a cigarette.
Mike is an interesting guy. On the outside he looks fairly normal (you see, there’s retardation that manifests itself outwardly, and then there’s retardation that doesn’t. But after a lifetime of being retarded, whether the outside is genetically affected or not, you can tell). He’s such a nice, supportive type of person. But it’s as if he’s just talking to be talking. For instance, Steve’s dad died last week, and Mike kept going on and on, talking to himself, saying “gee, did ya hear about Steve Cox’s dad. Gosh, what a tragedy. Yeah, he passed away last week.” I asked him where Shirley was, and he said “Oh, I haven’t seen her in a while. No, it’s been awhile. Yeah, haven’t seen Shirley for awhile. I’ll go see her today. Yeah, I think I’ll drop by today.” Of course he won’t, but I guess if feels good to him to think that he will.
Ah, Ricky and Eddie. Two of the nicest, sweetest people I’ve ever known. Eddie has Down’s syndrome, and Ricky is just mentally retarded. But even though they have had very hard lives, they have a joy and a simplicity about life that is really refreshing. I’ve always loved it when Ricky has corrected “Faddah” Phil on a point of Biblical doctrine, or attempted to engage him in a discussion of a Biblical story. A typical exchange:
R: “Faddah Phil, I was reading in Joshua the other day. Yeah, they blew their hohns (horns) and the walls of Jericho fell down.”
P: “Is that right, Ricky? Well….. Hm…. I don’t know if I remember that part… I’m not saying it happened, and I’m not saying it didn’t.”
– 10/13/1990
Rest in peace, Steve. I’m glad I knew you.
They took X-Rays of my mouth, which I appreciated because it’s good to get irradiated now and then, don’t you think? I was pleased that they cared enough about the health of my internal organs to give me a lead-lined apron to wear – as deadly radiation was blasted through my skull. I don’t understand.