Canthook

Do you believe in music, in a young boy's heart? How the music can free him, whenever it starts? And it's magic, if the music is groovy. It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie. I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul, but it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll.

Blondie has spent much of her working career as a TSS. That's Therapeutic Support Staff if you're unfamiliar with the term, and I hope you are. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it suggests you probably don't need a TSS for your family, and that's good news.

When I met Em, my late first wife, she was charge nurse of the intensive care nursery at the hospital. Most of their "customers" were newborns, and many of them were perfectly fine; if the census is low, they stick babies in the ICN that are doing fairly well, because there aren't any babies that don't benefit from extra loving care. One of the customers, though, was a preschooler, Mary, who'd been home less than two weeks of her life. Em's rotation had her caring for Mary every 4 or 5 nights, just caring for the one child.

I routinely disguise names here, to give privacy to those who have done no harm, and to avoid lawsuits from those who are less innocent. In this case, however, I can't even remember Mary's real name; I've blocked it. She had a habit of dying regularly, and they'd always resuscitated her, but after a few hundred times, you have to figure that at least once, they didn't save her quickly enough to avoid brain damage. Her father worked at The Big Factory, and had a million dollars worth of health insurance, but even though Mary's care had been several times that, the hospital had never billed the parents. What's the point? They would be sued if they did, and it'd cost more for lawyers than they could possibly collect from the parents.

I remember when Grandma had strokes in her 80s, she used to encourage visitors to lean over so she could whisper a secret, and when they got close, Grandma would claw and bite the visitor. Mary was the same way. She pretended to be so sweet, and then she'd be very nasty. Grandma had always been so sweet, and to hear Em tell it, Mary had been, too, but there's something about brain damage that can change your personality.

Em would come home from a night with Mary, and I could tell within seconds that had been her duty. I'd have to hold Em for an hour, and give her a long, long, backrub before she could fall asleep, because caring for Mary really tore her up, emotionally. Em no longer worked at the hospital when we learned of Mary's death; she'd overheard something when we had Jasper to his pediatrician. We went for a meal out with wine, a rare occurance for us, and we mourned Mary's suffering and celebrated Mary's escape to a better world.

Similarly, when Blondie would care for certain clients as a TSS, it would eat her up. The difference is that Em was only caring for the physical needs of Mary, while as a TSS, Blondie has to be right in there, working with her clients' minds. Let me tell you, that's a lot rougher.

Actually, it's harder dealing with parents, Blondie says, than dealing with the client. There is so much that the parents need to unlearn - and it's not necessarily something they want to do. Mark Twain said you can learn too much from experience. A cat, for instance, will learn not to jump on a cold stoves if he ever jumps upon a hot one. It's such a hard job, trying to raise an autistic kid, or other child who needs a TSS, that sometimes it's better to learn that the child cannot be helped, because otherwise, the parent keeps giving and giving and giving until there's nothing left.

These days, Blondie is back to the job she trained for, that of being a regular teacher. She works in an enrichment program, and because she is one of the few workers who is qualified to handle all ages, she gets shuffled around a lot. This being a holiday, she worked in a different school than she's usually working in, and with relatively few students there, she spent most of her day with - guess what? - a kid with an autism-spectrum disorder.

"Did you do a lot of singing?" I asked. She replied as I knew she would, telling me that she sings most all the day, most days. It's the secret to getting through to autism-spectrum-disorder kids, she says. In fact, it seems to be the secret to getting through to almost all kids.

Several years ago, she worked with Ardy. Ardy had epilepsy, I think it was, and had multiple strokes even before he was born. He reminded me of Stephen Hawking, all sorta curled up, unable to hold his head upright, moving around by moving the joystick of his motorized wheelchair.

I suppose I shouldn't admit that I ever met Ardy, or knew his name. Patients are entitled to their privacy, and spouses have no "need to know". On the other hand, I'd be somewhere, perhaps a farmer's market, with Isaac, the Alaskan Husky we had, and Ardy's brothers and sisters would come running up. They knew Isaac, because Blondie would sometimes take Isaac along, to serve as a therapy dog. Isaac would let kids hug and pet him, and pull his tail and bat him, and he wouldn't get upset with them, because he could tell they intended no harm. In fact, he'd come up and lick them on the hand or on the face, depending on what the kid wanted; he always seemed to know.

And seconds after the brothers and sisters would come running up, Ardy would appear, and then Ardy's mom. His family was incredibly warm and friendly, and kept inviting us to share supper with them. If they'd had more bedrooms, they'd have probably invited us to move in; they were just that friendly.

Ardy couldn't speak. Blondie, though, would sing along, and get Ardy to sing with her - and when Blondie would suddenly stop, there would be Ardy's voice, singing all by itself. Ardy couldn't read, either, but Blondie noticed that he would be so eager to respond to flash cards, he would sometimes give the answer even before he saw the card. She was showing him the picture side, since he couldn't possibly read - except that apparently he could, because he was responding to the written words on the side he could see. He was also fairly good at arithmetic, multiplying 2-digit numbers in his head.

His teacher didn't believe any of this. She couldn't get him to do the alphabet, much less read on a 5th grade level. She couldn't get him to count from 1 to 10, much less add, subtract or multiply. Bored out of his skull, and assigned to a teacher as exciting as leftover boiled turnips, he refused to do anything for her. Challenged by his TSS, he caught up to other 9-year-olds, and then continued to progress,
until he could read and do arithmetic appropriate for a kid four years older.

It would be easy enough to dismiss Ardy as an outlier, except that most kids seem to be the same kind of outlier when they're assigned to Blondie.

And I think back to when I was in school. There were kids who did well in school, and there were kids who were always in trouble, and seemed to be incredibly inventive and creative.

We get told that the problem in school is that students don't have any discipline and teachers don't get any respect, but when I was in school, there were teachers who got respect, without demanding it, simply by doing a great job of teaching, and there were teachers who demanded respect, and were talked of in scorn, because they were only interested in a highly-regimented silent classroom.

Remember Francis Marion, the "swamp fox" of the American Revolution? Those highly-regimented redcoats would march down the roads, silently, and the swamp fox and his men would sneak along and attack the redcoats and be gone before the british officers could order retaliation. It works much like that in the classroom as well. Learning isn't quiet and orderly. It's exciting. And excited kids are noisy, and they don't sit still.

On the news tonight, there were pictures of Barack Obama with a paint roller, painting the walls of a shelter. Can you ever remember a President of the United States stooping so low as to pick up hand tools and engage in labor? "Never doth a man stand so tall as when he stoops to help his fellow man." If I recall correctly, Abraham Lincoln said that.

Obama ran a Francis Marion campaign. He didn't say "You should vote for me because I'm great." He said "Yes, we can." He's not taking the oath of office until tomorrow, but he's challenging us to volunteer today.

And I believe. I believe we can be the change we so sorely need. I believe in the people of this land and the people of this world. And I believe in music.

Grab a broom, a hammer, or a paint roller. Stoop down and take the hand of a child who needs help. Do it with a song in your voice, and a song in your heart. Believe.

At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Abraham Lincoln - At Last - autism - Do You Believe In Magic - magic - Mark Twain - music - Stephen Hawking - Swamp Fox - TSS