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Show displays of her true emotions except for smiling or a small tittering of pleasure in playing a certain game. I see her walking at the turn she is to make on the sidewalk in the middle of winter- Her hands are almost purple because we could not find her gloves that morning. She has no boots because they were accidently left in the classroom the day before. It is a bad day for all of us. A freak snowstorm with half the staff out unable to get to work. We have to hurry and I am mad at her slowness. My ignorance keeps me from the complexity of following a sidewalk in winter. I have no idea of the steps involved. She has lost her way and tries to find a starting point. Finally, she gives up and stands like a pole, laughing at her plight. Her hands and feet are now purple. She does not feel the cold the way that I feel it. Finally, her toe touches the right guiding spot; she explores it, and making the turn most dramatically she signs to herself "good," and walks on. She becomes quiet with her hands solid at her sides. She begins to cry and signs to herself "bad!" with so emphatic a swing of her hands that she almost falls down. She is sorry- I_ am overwhelmed. She sobs uncontrollably, rubs her eyes with her fists. Her reddened face is contorted and she mouths the injustice of it all, telling herself "bad" for the first time. And I see that I have taught her her first new emotion, and it had to be bad." 'Good" and laughter and smiling, come easily to her- Bad" is a new feeling. She knows that others are "bad" to her, but this is the first time she has been "bad to herself. Such a responsibility to take on, feeling sorry for having hurt another. Feeling sorry for hurting one's self. Of all the many hours spent in airports, a seventeen-year-old girl sitting on my lap, I can still recall the final message of "goodness." Understand why the half-hour specialists are rarely treated to the sign for "bad," and how one person can touch another person's nightmares and even feel their own fears. I saw through veils that had never been lifted before and did not know it. I saw another's fears. I cannot say, with all my experience now, thaf'good" is the deeper emotion. The end of my final important lesson with Patty came at a different time, though the circumstances were almost the same. -12- |
