Today is my birthday and I got an email from Macy’s Online that said, “For your birthday, FREE SH….” (apparently the subject line was too long to display). I was hoping that it said “free shit” but it turned out to be “free shipping.”
I had a dream last night that I went back to college to walk around and I walked into this room that looked like some A/V Club’s lair. Lots of techie/geeky stuff laying around as well as personal items. I started leaving notes for one of the guys on his desk, telling him I was in love with him and had been watching him from afar for a while, and we started leaving notes back and forth. I could tell he was surprised but really into it, wanting to meet me, but to me, it was a joke and I kept stringing him along. One day, I walked in and left a note and as I walked towards the door, he stepped into the frame, catching me red-handed. He was this really tall guy with red hair, about 6’3, bulky in that he’d be considered straight up fat if he weren’t so tall. He really wasn’t attractive, looked like he wasn’t the most hygienic person and didn’t have much of a sense of humor. So he looks me dead in the eye and says, “So you’re the one.” And I’m thinking, oh crap, this was all a joke and now I’m being confronted. Plus, he was blocking the door. So I’m blubbering because I’m caught and this was all a cruel, awful joke I was playing on the poor guy, when I realize he’s Kevin Ray Underwood. And I’m thinking, he’s basically a guy who’s really sensitive and not that socially adjusted, but also has the potential to be seriously violent if he feels he’s been humiliated, so I’m freaking out. I’m looking at him like, can I pretend convincingly enough that I’m someone who’s been into him to get myself out of the room, and even if I can, if I try to disappear, is he going to stalk me? I’m trying to act like I was really into him even though I’m shy and embarrassed now but I can tell that he’s looking at me and he knows that I’m scared of him and not into him like all my letters have said. So I can tell he’s getting suspicious and a little angry, and I’m blubbering because I’m scared of him and trapped in a room and I know he’s going to kill me or seriously hurt me when he realizes I was playing a cruel joke on him. I woke up just as I was half-apologizing/half-begging for him to understand that it was just a stupid, stupid mistake I made that wasn’t funny at all and begging for him to forgive me.
I think this dream was spawned by an exchange I had with Brian late last night, when I said, “Hey Brian, my bologna has a first name.” And he said, “O-S-C-A-R?” And I said, “No. Kevin.”
*****
Last weekend Michael graduated. He goes to a school for kids with special needs, and they graduate the year they turn 22. The graduation was held on the basketball court of the school with all the chairs from the classrooms and offices pulled together for the audience to sit on. There were 5 kids graduating, 3 from Michael’s class and 2 from another, with varying levels of functionality. The kids put on some skits that were written by one of the students (one of them was titled “The Frustrated Corpse,” a detective murder mystery narrated by the corpse) which were surprisingly good and not worse or less developed than skits put on by normal high school students. Michael’s teacher, in his speech, described Michael as the “Alex P. Keaton of Room 18, the businessman of the class.” I got a kick out of that. Michael and one of his graduating classmates had each prepared a speech, but when they were asked to go up, they both refused to go first. The teacher asked Michael if he wanted to go first and Michael said no, so he asked the othe girl who said no, so he asked Michael again who growled at him, so he asked the girl who said, “No, have Michael go first.” Finally, he made the girl go up first and she spent nearly her entire speech thanking God and assigning him adjectives. It was kind of sweet though, the power and conviction of her faith. Michael still wouldn’t go up so his teacher offered to read his speech for him.
The teacher started off reading, “Hello, my name is Michael J. Shih” and one of the kids yelled (very seriously), “YOU’RE NOT MICHAEL SHIH!” Halfway through the speech, Michael went up and read the speech over his teacher’s shoulder.
They opened up the floor to the students who had parting words for their graduating classmates. One girl stood up and said, “I’m really going to miss you guys now that you’re graduating…but I’m glad you’re leaving.” Another kid told this girl, Frances, that he was going to miss her even though she once threw him into a wall. He steamrolled over teachers trying to shush him as he described the incident and informed her that he was still going to miss her despite that. Overall though, many students had very nice, sentimental parting words for their classmates. After a while, the same kids kept raising their hands so they ended the ceremony and proceeded to the BBQ.
I’ll tell you, Michael is a lucky kid because he has a family that is supportive and protective of him, and also, has the financial means to support him and give him the care he needs. There was one kid, a really interesting character and nice kid, even though he rapid-fires questions that cause conversations with him to go in a circle [ie one 1 minute conversation I had with him:
who are you?
I’m Michael’s-
Why are you Michael’s mother?
I’m actually Michael’s sister.
What color is that smoke?
I’d say gray or–
What color is that tree?
Oh I’d say–
Do you know how I turned on the grill–?
I suppose, uh–
I turned a knob. Why are you Michael’s sister? ]
My mom told me this kid’s father wasn’t around and his mother had died when he was young so he was raised by his grandmother who looked to be in her 70s, wheelchair-bound and very feeble. There really wouldn’t be anyone to take care of him, especially now that his grandmother was so old. Near the end of the BBQ, he beelined over to me from across the entire school where I was on the basketball courts playing basketball. He walked right through the middle of the game and said to me, “Before you leave, I want to do this.” He clasped both hands tightly and shook them. At first I was confused because he was kinda doing that close to his crotch. I asked him what he meant and he said the exact same thing with the exact same motion, in the exact same location. I asked him, “Shake my hand?” He nodded. I told him, “I’ll shake your hand right now!” He smiled so broadly it lit up his entire face and shook my hand enthusiastically. That made me feel really good.
With most graduations, there’s this electricity in the air, a feeling of excitement, of all the possibilities that could be in the future of these kids set free into the great wide open. With this graduation, it seemed like everyone was proud of the graduates, but underneath was the unspoken question of, “What’s going to happen to them?” It’s very bittersweet.
As for Michael, he’s going to be working at my parents company doing data entry while we look for some kinds of classes he can take that can teach him work skills. We’re trying to cut back on his medications to see if that can give him a better balance, and hopefully, as he matures and gains independence, with the right guidance and structure, he can succeed within his individual potential in life and attain a satisfactory level of autonomy.
My goal is to become financially stable enough to afford a place for him in LA, and perhaps start some kind of company where he can do simple tasks that would occupy his day and give him a sense of achievement. I would like my parents to move down here permanently too in order to keep him close, because I really do worry about his health and think it
would help his development to be around peers more instead of his parents and other symbols of authority all the time.
My mom’s dream is that one day, Michael will be able to get married and have kids. I would like to see that happen as well, but that’s something that will come if it’s there. We can’t push it. The best we can do is help Michael develop within himself, to raise his self-esteem and guide him through his quest for independence, help him and protect him when he hits one of the limitations of his disability, and ultimately give him unconditional love in hopes that he lives a happy, uncompromised life.
It’s an exciting time and a scary time. It’s all very bittersweet.