I saw Sister Mary Scullion on the news again last night.
Sister Mary is a highly respected advocate for the homeless here
in Philadelphia. She is frequently in the news. This time she was
with actress Lily Tomlin who was here doing a benefit performance
for the homeless. As always, as soon as I heard her name
mentioned I stopped what I was doing to sit and watch. I used to
know Mary Scullion. We went to Little Flower High School together
and since my last name used to be Sciole and hers was Scullion I
ended up sitting in front of her in homeroom for four years.
We didn't hang
around together or anything. She was on the Student Council and
was always volunteering for this and that. I was in the orchestra
and that pretty much took up all of my time. But you can't sit in
front of someone for 45 minutes a day for four years without
getting to know them a little. She was an easy person to be
friendly with. She was funny, good natured, and down-to-earth,
the kind of person you could be buddies with. She was an ordinary
girl.
At first when I
used to see her on TV or read about her in the paper it would
bother me. She reminded me of that poem by Robert Frost,
"The Road Not Taken." He writes about having to choose
between two roads. He "took the one less traveled by, and
that has made all the difference."
Mary and I
graduated from high school together. She took the road less
traveled. She deliberately chose a difficult life, one of
constantly fighting to help people unable to help themselves.
I, however, never
wanted a difficult life. I always tried to take the easy road,
and make the easy choices. I went to college, chose a major that
wouldn't give me much trouble, graduated, got married, got a job
in an office, all ordinary things. There I was traveling down
that nice easy road and all of a sudden there's a roadblock
Nineteen years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Katie.
Ten little fingers, ten little toes, and 47 chromosomes. All of a
sudden I couldn't get down that road I chose. I had to detour
over to the road less traveled and start struggling through the
underbrush. And I really didn't want to do it. Everyone told me
that God had chosen me to have a Down's Syndrome child for a
reason, that I was special. I didn't want to be special. I wanted
things to be easy. But even though I wished that God had chosen
someone else I did the best I could. I learned all I could about
Down's Syndrome and mental retardation. I got her into an Early
Intervention Program and did all the infant stimulation exercises
with her. My husband and I got involved with the parents group at
her preschool and when she got older we fought with the school
district to get her into the most appropriate program. We
continue to fight for her.
After a while
things seemed to get easier. The path looked like it was getting
clearer again. I had a standard model son, Jay, who is now
thirteen. I figured I could relax. Then almost nine years ago God
chose us again. I just don't understand what it is with God. I
had another beautiful baby girl, Molly, who at first seemed
perfect. Then when she was eight weeks old she had several
seizures and after extensive testing the doctors told us she had
an abnormality of the white matter of the brain. So there I was
getting detoured again, back on the road less traveled,
struggling through the underbrush. And this time the going was a
lot harder. Katie was handicapped but always healthy. Molly had
had seizures and apnea episodes so the first year and a half of
her life was spent on medication and an apnea monitor. In
addition to cognitive and motor delays she also has an auditory
dysfunction and vision problems. We went back to Early
Intervention and infant stimulation and this time a lot more
doctor visits. Now I'm learning sign language.
I used to watch
Mary Scullion and feel guilty. I thought that there is a person
who obviously is good at the hard stuff. She chose that road. Me,
I wanted it easy, I'm not good at this. It's a constant struggle.
God shouldn't have picked me. He should have picked Mary
Scullion.
Then not too long
ago something finally occurred to me. Maybe Mary deliberately
picked the road less traveled and I got detoured onto it but once
I got here I had a choice. I could have chosen to lie down in the
road and let the weeds grow over me. I'm not. I'm fighting my way
through the underbrush. Maybe I'm not too thrilled about it but
I'm doing it and when I stop to think about it I think I'm doing
it pretty damn well. Maybe God knows what he's doing after all.
Hear that noise?
That's Mary Scullion and me, chopping down the weeds. It's not
hard once you get used to it.
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