A while back I went to a Downs Syndrome Conference held at Princeton University where Ms. Freud sponsored a booth.
It was a truly wonderful event which touched my soul. Not all, but most DS children are so very loving and without guile. I got so many hugs I thought I was at a Hugs Convention. More than once those children left a tear in my eye.
So, yesterday, we received a hand-written letter from one of the moms we met at that conference. I am copying it here, exactly as it is written, word for word, without editing (except for the underlined part at the end).
She is asking us to help her child. We will. I am not asking any of you to do the same …. although I think a few of you might want to. We have generous folks here at TBP.
My main reason for sharing this is to encourage folks … especially to those who may find themselves in a difficult situation right now. Because if a person with Downs Syndrome can find a way to “make it” …. then, surely, you can also!
“See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” —— Matthew 18:10
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Dear Dr. xxxxxxx,
We met you at a Down syndrome conference. You also signed Michael’s guest book.
March 21, 2015 is World Down Syndrome Day. An organization on Long Island is hosting an art exhibit at an art gallery at a vineyard. Michael did paintings for posters and bookmarks.
NADS used to print bookmarks for their members to distribute in October in their communities for DS Awareness Month. When NADS stopped printing them, Michael picked up the slack.
DS organizations print them and give them out at Buddy Walks and pit them in New Parent Packs. Parents print them for their children to take to school. Public libraries and bookstores give them away for free.
This is Michael’s newest project. He wants to send a bookmark master sheet and samples to every DS organization in the USA. There are several hundred!
He wants to get them mailed in January. He needs Forever Stamps or a Visa Gift Card to use at the Post Office. If you can help, Michael will send you a limited edition poster with the artwork. The posters are large, suitable for framing. They advertise the art exhibit on Long Island, in March and April. The posters are being sent to Barnes & Noble, local art museums and Manhattan art galleries that show Outsider Art.
Last year a customer purchased a Visa Gift Card online with her credit card to pay for an illustration job. Gift Card Mall sent Michael an email first [email protected] Then Gift Card Mall snail-mailed the Visa Gift Card to him. Michael Johnson, 823 Elmwood Ave #2, Evanston IL 6202-4353. It worked well! It was safe and convenient.
Michael is 42. He supports himself with his art. He doesn’t receive SSI or Medicaid. He paints every day and he loves it. He is still learning new things
Happy New Year.
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The mom included four bookmarks and a postcard featuring Michael’s art.
He has a website; http://www.artistmichaeljohnson.com/
He is also featured here; http://www.loveandlearning.com/michaelpage.shtml
Here is some of his artwork;
Stucky
This year I took a long term sub job at my former school. A teacher suddenly resigned about 6 weeks into the school year and I was asked to cover until a new teacher was hired. I said ok, until Christmas. After a few weeks I knew I didn’t want to stop at Christmas, I wanted to do the whole rest of the year if I could. The principal and I reached agreement.
I am teaching, for the first time, a class of moderately to severely disabled middle school kids. It is the most joyous job I have ever had, eclipsing even my experiences teaching in a prison school, which up to now has been my most favorite job ever.
I know exactly what you experienced at the conference. Imagine bathing in all that love every day when you go to work.
I have one DS student, obviously functioning at a much lower level than Michael. He will never paint a picture, but we enjoy victories. He is spitting less on other people. He still likes to say bad words all day long, a habit which appears to be fairly intractable. The other students have adjusted well to the background noise of a cuss word being endlessly repeated as we go about our business. Our boy has earned the right to be responsible for a classroom job: he must turn the lights on and off, which he performs with great enthusiasm.
Special Ed is a world of huge small achievements. It took Louie 4 months to memorize his 6-digit number for getting breakfast and lunch, but it was a great day when this milestone was reached. He frequently says “I love you Ms. D.” One day he kissed me on the cheek and informed me, “Ms. D, I kissed you on the cheek.” He likes to flirt with girls and get teased. He is consciously working hard on improving his coloring skills and he is getting better.
Maria is on 4 psych drugs and has all kinds of issues. If you could label a child “psychopathic” (you can’t) she’d get the label. I allowed myself to get into a power struggle with her early on, but learned that’s what she craves. She would get the whole room into complete turmoil very easily. I and my assistants began to absolutely ignore her negative behaviors. If she gets difficult in group work, the rest of the group simply moves to another part of the room. If she refuses to do something by laying down on the floor, we just let her lay there for as long as she wants (sometimes she takes a nap). We’ve taught the other kids to not respond, not even look at her when she starts calling them bad names. They do really well. If I have to take her someplace, I can always get her to go if I hold her hand. She is getting much better and feels more secure I think. She completes little work, but when she does decide it’s worth her time, she hyperfocuses and takes forever to do a perfect job. Huge small victories.
There are two autistic boys in class, one more severely disabled than the other. They fascinate me. They are locked in their own strange world, but you can connect. Joe can attend for about 5 minutes to any kind of academic instruction (one-on-one), and then he’s done. He can’t tolerate doors or drawers that aren’t shut. He will run his hands through a tub of small blocks for an hour or more. He is happy but can only express himself verbally in a very limited way. I have made him my very efficient tech guy, responsible for turning all the technology on and off. He also writes “mon ” on the board every single day and then announces “manna.”
The other one is a beautiful boy who will probably be able to function somehow as an adult. He reads and comprehends 2nd grade level books and is efficient with a calculator. He has great trouble following oral instructions and typical of the autistic, becomes agitated with too much sensory stimulation. He just read a book and passed a 5 question computer quiz with 100% correct. Huge small victories.
A little lady from the similar room next door comes to visit every day. She has severe cerebral palsy, cannot do anything whatsoever for herself, including speaking. Two things she can do from her wheelchair world is make gross movements with her arms and project a smile from her absolutely perfect and beautiful face. The smile is a high-watt expression that literally lights up a room. Her mother dresses her in head-to-toe adorableness every day. I think she’s the best dressed kid in the whole school. She’s the only child I feel a sense of deep sorrow for; hers is the kind of situation that could make you mad at God. If there’s any victory there, it is in that smile, that human spirit that expresses joy in spite of it all.
So I’m on vacation right now, but I can’t wait to get back to work. For years I taught gifted kids, and I can assure you this is way more fun.
Gayle
You are a saint. I mean that.
Maybe the kid who cusses has a future on TBP.
Gayle
Beautiful, lovely, wonderful post. +1000
“Maybe the kid who cusses has a future on TBP.” ———- Admin
Plus, he could befriend bb.
Fantastic stuff, Gayle. That you enjoy the work means these kids will have someone they can depend on.
Hey! I befriended bb.
The fact that I copy and re-post everything Gayle writes doesn’t mean I’m obsessed, she reminds me of many teachers I had the privilege of growing up with.
BTW, I was at the farmers market (next to The Grove) where they had a collection of watercolor paintings arranged like tiles, they were much like Michael’s. The theme was world peace. I liked them so I took a snapshot. I recall another collection many years ago at a drug center where we took our son for consultation, wish I had taken pics, the theme then was the danger of drugs.
I’ve got a roll of 100 forever stamps he can have. It might be quicker if I could buy a roll via credit card he could pick up locally. Please advise on the best way to proceed.
My heart really goes out to the parents of these kids. I constantly wonder what it must be like to know your handicapped child will outlive you in this crazy ass world. Now that we KNOW some of the architects of Obamacare believe in eugenics, it has got to be unimaginably tough.
In my high school there was an unwritten rule that the senior class acted as guardians of the handicapped kids. Fucking with one of them earned you an instant ass kicking. No exceptions.
In my city there is an old, poor black woman with a huge house in an historic district. She operates a kind of a boarding house for high functioning retards. She hired us to do a concrete job for her to meet some new building code and we got to know a few of the permanent residents. Most of them have no family. They are pretty cool people all in all but clearly marching to their own drum. The old lady looks out for their health, clothing and other needs they would never do for themselves but other than that they are free to go about their daily lives outside the home. There are a bunch of people, myself included, in the city who unofficially look out for them whenever they are out and about. In twenty years I have never seen anyone mess with them. In fact, they seem to have more friends than anyone else I know.
I_S
I bought 3 rolls of forever stamps a few years ago … I think we used maybe 20 stamps off one roll, as we pay pretty much every damn bill online. I’m gonna send them to him, and Ms Freud has some other ideas.
As far as the best way, it seems they prefer snail mail. From their website ..
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Preferred payment (for paintings) is by personal check, business check or money order made payable to Michael Johnson and mailed to:
Michael Johnson
823 Elmwood Ave. #2
Evanston IL 60202-4353
Stucky, I bought $1k worth of forever stamps when they first came out. I still pay bills by check but I doubt I’ll run out of stamps. I do know that my first class postage rates are locked in a $0.41 for the rest of my life or until the post office goes out of business.
I’ll ask my local PO about sending him a gift card to buy a roll.
Haha Sticky. Didjew misspell ‘syndome’ on purpose in solidarity with the mongreloids?
Billah Jr is so dumb me n Billah said to ouselfs many a time we’d luv to trade him in fer our own little mongreloid baby.
Gayle, keep up the good work.
As for those autistic paintings they have a certain 3D field to them. The second one is just cool.
Downs, I meant to write.
Just set the second picture by right clicking on it and setting it, stretched, as desktop background.
Thx Stucko.
Thank you so much for sharing this Stuck, so very much. I’m running to the post office tomorrow to help out Muck (just got Admin’s email Muck! I’m sorry!) and this will just be an extra bonus.
I have a beautiful cousin with Down’s Syndrome. Becky is now in her early 40s, having outlived her projected lifespan by decades. She lives in a little apartment on her own, bags groceries to partially support herself and I just could not be more proud of her.
When I was young her slobbery kisses and bear hugs – though almost 5 years younger than I, she was always bigger than me – were both dreaded and highly anticipated. I am just so grateful that I had that opportunity to learn about the differently abled so young in my own development. And I still treasure her smiles, hugs and simplicity of life. She taught me so much.
As a pre-teen I started babysitting for a friend of my mom’s. She worked in a home for developmentally disabled adult women. Her schedule was 24 on, 24 off, 48 on, 48 off, 72 on, 72 off. I babysit her toddler on any weekend where her schedule required it. After showing myself capable and mature ( I was 11 and would keep her son and home for up to 50 hours without assistance), she convinced the owner of the home to hire me to fill in over holidays and vacations.
For a couple years I was blessed with being a “dorm girl” and became very close to the girls whose families did not bring them home for the holidays. The home was a private one, and if a “girl” (some of which were well into their 50s) lived there, then she was from a VERY well-to-do home. My aunt and uncle could not have afforded to put Becky there.
Those weeks are some of the best ones I’ve ever lived. Never in my life have I felt so special, so loved, so accepted. Having the friendship and love of a DS individual is a feeling like no other.
IS, that is awesome. My school had no such rule, BUT after my first three or four days as a Freshman, it became known that little ole’ 5′ tall, 100 pound TE, would risk life and limb and suspension to put a world of hurt on anyone that messed with the “special” kids. I kicked the hell out of a junior guy when I caught him pushing Dougie down and taking his stuff away. That was one of the times in my life when I literally saw red and could not stop myself. It took 3 or 4 guys ( I really am not sure how many, I was busy after all) to pull me off the asshole. Luckily, the dumbass was a foot taller and outweighed me by an easy 75 pounds, so the Principal called my dad and only gave me a warning as he couldn’t bring himself to suspend me, nor the jackass whom was “needed” for the football team.
Again Stuck, thank you. Stamps will be on their way and I’m working on hub to have the company send a check too.
ps @Gayle, there is a special place in the next world for people like you.