The other evening I met a very spunky person. We were at a dinner occasion where I knew most people, but this was someone I had not met before. When the opportunity arose, I went and sat down next to her. I could tell there was something a little odd, a little different, about her but whatever that was it wasn’t immediately obvious. We got talking and I asked about her hobbies. That is usually a good thing to explore when looking for some common ground. She had a cat (oh yes, I do too) and she wasn’t very well. She tired easily, and needed lots of rest. But then I learnt that she worked 5 hours a day with some special children, those with learning difficulties and who needed extra assistance in the classroom. As she was talking, I watched what she was doing with her hands. She was using her fingers, positioning them on the table in front of her in a sequence as though marking her place in the conversation we were having. Now that was something different and it intrigued me to know what she was doing.

Curious type that I am, I watched for a while longer and then placed my own finger in the next position. Her eyes met mine and she smiled, and I saw a tear form in the corner of her eyes. I put my hand on hers and squeezed it, with a kind of silly grin. Then she told me that she was in a car accident two years ago and had a brain injury. Her work with the children was hard for her as it involved a lot of concentration and memory skills, but it was good for her also. It was a part of her own recovery, making her brain work again in ways that it did once but now was struggling to do so. She had been a fully qualified teacher, but now she was a teacher’s aide. In a way she was starting all over again.

The accident had robbed her of much of her short term memory and she had to learn to associate the sequence of things. If she was ironing and the telephone rang, she might answer the phone but not know what she was doing before it had rung. At home she had a blackboard where she wrote down each activity as a part of performing it. Otherwise she might leave the iron on, or a pot boiling on the stove, and many other things left unfinished and possibly unsafely so. She was teaching herself to make connections between events. And she was teaching her special children to do that as well. If it seemed like the blind leading the blind, at least it was clear to me that she knew in great detail the difficulties and the strategies for getting around them. Teaching the children was teaching herself, and both were learning together.

As we spoke, she was practising her conversation skills. Everything was a learning opportunity. She was a dedicated listener although it was me asking more about herself than the other way around. I was fascinated by her strategies, and humbled by the story of her slow and steady recovery. She still had a long way to go yet, especially when having to deal with the fatigue caused by such effort. But she was determined to recover, and her attitude was positive and full of hope.

I wondered how I would deal with that kind of disability. And how would others deal with me? The world is not always too kind to those who are not perfect, and yet none of us are perfect anyway. Knowing my new friend’s struggle helped me to understand and appreciate her. She was learning to be brave and tell people what was wrong with her, risking the rejection of some but the greater tolerance and caring of others. I have heard it boasted proudly by some that they do not tolerate fools, and those words make me shudder. Not all of us have super wonderful brains, great intellects, the benefits of superior education, fast processing speeds, and witty wordsmithing skills. Some of us start much further back than others, are challenged to think clearly, put ideas together and express the results coherently. I am often reminded of the words of that lovely piece of writing, Desiderata, especially this part…

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Yes, we all have our story, no matter who we are - even the most humble and otherwise forgotten ones. We all matter, and we should all be valued for our worth is not measured by the world’s standards, but by the One who is our Creator. In His eyes, as undeserving though we may see ourselves (and others) to be, we most definitely matter to Him.