The calls started coming about a month ago. “Jerry is having trouble breathing; they’ve taken him to the hospital for oxygen.” Jerry is my older brother. During the late stages of pregnancy, my mother experienced complications that caused the loss of oxygen flow to his brain, resulting in life-altering mental capacities for him. He was what we might call today “mentally challenged,” what people cruelly called then “retarded.” He was, in other words, a survivor of a birth-related brain injury.
In truth, his abilities were challenged, causing him to be placed in the “special” class and mainstreamed in public education in suburban Chicago. It was a class comprised of many people with various forms of disability, only to be ridiculed because they might not be articulate in speech, might laugh at the wrong time, be unable to complete sentences, drool, or have bodies with spastic motions at unexpected moments. Because they were “special,” they were often treated badly on the playground, in the hallways, or just walking with us through town; mothers even “protected” their own children when they saw Jerry and me walking the sidewalks. More than once I even told mothers to “shut up,” as they called him “retard.” “Shut up” was a phrase not allowed in our family home.
Jerry was a special needs child. His life changed within only a few months of what appeared to be an otherwise normal pregnancy. Until age 16, he was in the public school system, but nothing was offered beyond that age. Eventually, he moved to a group facility in southern Illinois where he lived just short of 50 years. Read More
