This is a post that is way long overdue. I think I was waiting for the right moment, and with something I will talk about in this post, I think I finally found, or more accurately, felt, and knew that this was the right time to talk about it now.
Ever since I was a young kid, I have always felt a strong connection to people with special needs. I found out about eleven years ago that I have Asperger's Syndrome, but am very high functioning, and don't identify myself with special needs.
I think that the first time I learned about people with special needs, I was watching a made for TV movie that I have mentioned quite a few times called "Triumph of the Heart: The Ricky Bell Story". I still love it to this day, and what's great is it is on Netflix, and I highly recommend it to everyone. It tells the real-life story of Ricky Bell who was a professional football player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and how he majored in speech therapy, and Ricky Bell would go out and help people with special needs, or other issues. What starts as a two hour study session with a kid, turns into one of the very best non-romantic relationship that I have ever experienced. Though it can be cheesy, it came out in 1989, so there is a lot that has changed, but what hasn't is the emotional journey you go through as you watch the movie.
I remember asking my parents about kids who had troubles, and they explained special needs people to me, and I had the warmest emotional feeling, and it has grown into flame that burns in my heart, and it hasn't gone away.
Last summer, I took a Film and American Culture class. We studied the unfair treatment of many races of people who make up our great country, and how they are very unrepresented in pop culture, which also talked about those in the LGBTQ+ community, and those with special needs. I have known for a long time that those with special needs are very underrepresented, and even though things are getting better, it isn't up to where it should be.
About six months after I watched the movie about Ricky Bell, I was watching TV again, lol, and the show Life Goes On came on. It tells the story of a family that's in the lower-middle class, where one of their family members has Down Syndrome. Though the show has episodes dealing with the family, it's main focus was on Charles (Corky) Thatcher, and his life as he starts trying to mainstream him into a normal high school. Even though Corky is four years older than his sister, they start high school together in the same class.
My mom and I watched it, and we loved it, and we talked about it for a while. We wished that we had recorded the episode, and within a couple of days, the wish was fulfilled. So many people wrote and called into ABC to have a repeat for those who wanted to watch it again, see it for the first time with a lot of positive word of mouth, and those who tuned in a little late to see the beginning of the show.
It ran for four seasons from 1990 to 1993. We live in a world where most of our entertainment is streamed off of the internet, DVD and Blu-Ray discs with a full series of a particular show. Life Goes On is not streaming anywhere, though there are two episodes on YouTube, The show isn't streaming, and only season one was released on DVD, but is very hard to come by because it was released in the early 2000s, and not enough copies were sold for ABC to continue producing the rest of the show. I wasn't able to find a copy available, or one that wasn't an eBay auction for $175.00 and higher. I wish I had the rest of the show to rewatch. I watched an episode on YouTube earlier tonight, and the same feelings came flooding back. That was the kick I needed to finally write about this topic.
This show did two things for me. I learned how people with special needs are still people, and it's wrong for people to overlook or interact with people with special needs just because they are different. It's true that people with special needs do need help to some degree, but we can help that process become better by treating everyone, not just people with special needs, but everyone with kindness and understanding, even if we need to learn and help boost that understanding, it's so important.
The second thing the show did for me was to recognize those with special needs, and had, and still have, an immeasurable amount of love and service, and the desire to help those where I can.
When I was a senior in high school, I received the best church calling that I will ever have, and that was to go and help with the LDS Special Needs Mutual. If you are unfamiliar with LDS culture, Mutual is a weekly activity where the teenage boys get together and do stuff like Boy Scouts, and girls get together and do activities, and once a month, the boys and girls have a combined activity, where they do an activity where the boys and girls get together and do activities together., whether they are fun or service, or spiritual activities.
So, I heard about the program where we would go to a church building, and do fun mutual related activities for those with special needs. The calling is kind of a rare thing. When I heard about it, I asked my Stake President about it. He said that each stake, a stake is made up of wards, or congregations, and they only wanted one boy and one girl from the stake. My stake president, who had previously been my bishop was surprised when I asked about it, and wondered if someone had already been called, or assigned to participate. He was shocked because even though there was already a girl, they had tried calling eight people ahead of me, and they weren't interested at all, and I asked if I could participate, and when my stake president heard that not only was I willing to be in the program, but the fact that I was excited and wanted to do it so much, he kind of teared up. So, I got the calling.
In the program, there were a lot of people with special needs, and each person who was called to the program to help, were assigned a buddy. My buddy's name is David Matthews, and too late, I have already made the connection to the Dave Matthews Band, and he was a riot. I loved rhyming when he talked, and with my last name being, Unck, he went nuts, lol. We did a lot of great things. We had a pinewood derby, where we made little cars out of blocks of wood, and then race down a track. David wanted the car to be a shark, and I had to carve it and then he painted it. It was not easy, and though we finished dead last, we had the coolest car.
We had dances, we did roadshows, if you don't know what a roadshow is, it's a play that you write and make up yourself, and then you perform it, and then go around all night to different church buildings and performed the play, for combined activities with the girls. It was the best, and I was heartbroken when the calling had to end. To this day, it's one of the best things I have ever been a part of.
Not only did I have many many nights of feeling like my heart was burning with love and support, but I started having feelings around people with special needs. When I see someone with special needs, I see a perfect spirit, and I learned that even though we helped with the activities and had fun with our buddies, but it did way more for me spiritually than I had ever thought possible.
I have volunteered for the Special Olympics of Utah a few times, and it's always awesome. I thought about going into special education, but I substituted a few days at the school districts handicapped school, and there was a lot that I liked, but there were things that I knew I wouldn't be able to do, and I am in awe with the people who do teach and are teacher aides, and what they can do to help in extreme situations.
The last thing I will tell you is hard to explain. I have been in public, and I start having these burning feelings come over me, and I look around, and see that there is a person with special needs where I am at, and this might sound totally insane, but when I see them, I light up, and what's even stranger is that the person with special needs recognizes me. I have had many experiences where this happens, and their parent or guardian will tell me that they never talk to anyone, and even more strange, reacts in a positive way towards me. I thought at first it was a fluke, that maybe I looked like someone they knew, but after these experiences happening time and time again, I don't believe that it is a fluke. I don't know how this happens, or why, but I love it, and it makes me feel special and important. I don't understand why it happens, and the fact that it happens frequently, but whatever it is, I see these people as angels, and them reacting the way they do towards me makes me feel like I must be doing something right to be given what I consider a special gift that not everyone has.
I might sound crazy. I don't know how, but I know it happens, and I can't ignore it at all. I found out a couple of weeks ago that the church still has the program, as well as a special needs institute, where people with special needs attend religion courses for college credits, and I have been feeling the need to explore it farther to see if they have room for one more person to help and serve these wonderful , incredible people that help me make sense of things in this world that can be crazy and unpredictable.
In my film class, we talked about how those with special needs don't get very many roles in film and television. Life Goes On was ahead of its time, I think, but it's very sweet, and helps shed light on the subject of how to help and understand those with special needs. The actor, who plays Corky, Chris Burke is an incredible talent. In the past few years we have seen a couple of films where there are actual people with special needs, which is awesome. One is The Ringer, and more recently, we had The Peanut Butter Falcon, which starred Zack Gotsagen, a young man with Down Syndrome, as the lead character in the film. If you haven't seen it, you need to watch it. It's fantastic, and it proves that there is tons of potential to make entertainment where those with special needs can be seen and understood.
Anyway, I hope you are all having a great holiday season, and I hope you are safe and well. I have Elliot with for a couple of weeks, and we have some fun activities planned before he has to fly back home to Kansas. Speaking of which, it's in the middle of the night, and I am sure that I am not going to be able to sleep in, so I should go. I hope this post was enlightening, and I hope you don't think that I am a completely crazy and strange person, at least in a bad way. Have a good one, and I will be back with another post soon.
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