Georgie

[responsivevoice_button voice=”US English Female” buttontext=”Listen to Post”]

I’m always glad when I read Facebook posts and such about kids with disabilities who are very much loved, accepted and cared for. Such stories often remind me that it wasn’t always this way, and then I remember Georgie…..

In 1975, (the morning after my 16^th birthday) somewhere in amongst the institution’s relocation to its new building, plus an additional 30 or so kids, appeared Georgie.

From what seemed like the first second of any awareness of him, wherever Georgie was, trouble always accompanied him. They were inseparable. You never got one without the other, no matter how hard you tried.

Georgie certainly wasn’t a very likeable kid and his razor sharp tongue didn’t help his cause any. He was what most would call “a bad seed – the Devil’s spawn.” Yet once every blue moon, likely by mistake, he’d let the slightest sliver of decency come through, but it was extremely rare and very short lived.

As with a good many disabled kids, (back then at least) Georgie appeared to have been just dumped off one day and completely forgotten by his family. They never visited, never called, and made it clear that they didn’t want him. They even told him so.

But something rare happened to Georgie. A few years later, when he was around age 9, a new family wanted to adopt him and actually did.

On his grand departure day, there sat Georgie, looking like a billion bucks – a shiny brand new wheelchair, fully bathed, scrubbed, polished, shined, even a new suit. And if his new family had picked him up at that very second all would have been fine, but Georgie had a few hours to wait and for this kid, thirty seconds would have been too long not to tempt fate.

He made his way down to the arts & crafts room and although every imaginable, possible, substance of any craft making supplies were securely locked in a separate room, at a split second’s turn of our backs and to our absolute astonishment, there sat Georgie, completely covered from head to toe – customized seating and all, with paint, glue, markers and you name it. The term “unbelievable” would be an understatement.

Luckily, the staff still had time to repolish Georgie, although I can’t conceive of how they could have salvaged his new wheelchair. But in the end, off went Georgie – to all our delight and relief.

But about a month or so later, Georgie was back, rejected by now his second family. Word quickly spread that instead of the family’s other kids having a positive influence on him, the opposite took place, to the extreme. In no time flat, Georgie had thoroughly taught his adopted siblings how to terrorize the parents and everyone else, as well as he could. The couple began fighting and were quickly on the verge of divorce. Either Georgie went or…..

What became of Georgie, I don’t know. I left the institution shortly after his return. Yet, I do think about him from time to time and wonder just how much damage was done to Georgie – to his spirit, to his soul, to this young boy who’s only experience with “family” was so hurtful, so conditional, so…. inhuman.