Monday, November 05, 2012

A Gift Given

(photo description: Joe, wearing a grey sweater, and Stephen, wearing a blue jumper and a gray vest, sitting together at a table looking at a white piece of paper.)

Stephen knocked on the door, just a little after we finished breakfast, and we welcomed him into our suite at Carrog Mill. Stephen had participated a few days before in a workshop on dealing with bullying and teasing. In that workshop we taught the group Ruby's song, which was a song that I wrote as a young boy to sing myself some comfort. I'd only shared it recently when Ruby had started school and was experiencing being bullied. We'd put it on YouTube for her and discovered, quickly, how public that would be. We had intended it only to be seen by Ruby. Here's that clip .. (words to the song are in the text that follows)


The whole group loved the song and almost all of them got up to sing it. Stephen left after having asked us to write the words down for him. He was staying the weekend at the Mill and had come over to ask to have us practise singing the song with him. We were pleased and proud to do so. He asked about Ruby and having been bullied, he asked about my experiences as a child. Listening carefully to the answers quietly and then shared his own story.

We already knew a bit about Stephen, he's a wonderfully funny man, with a devastating sense of humour. He'd told us about his Sunday's acting as assisting the Vicar at the altar or as a side server every week in the Church of Wales. He told us about his work at a restaurant. His time spent helping out his favourite charity. His life - which he describes as a full and happy one ... but ... for his entire life - 47 years - he has experienced bullying and teasing.

"It Gets Better" .. rings hollow in Stephen's ear. He knows as a man with Down Syndrome, a visible disability, that it doesn't get better, in fact, it doesn't stop. He describes going out for walks, which he loves to do. He had travelled, himself alone, from where he lives in the city to the small village of Corwen to be there for the weekend and there to learn about bullying and teasing. He loved the workshop. He loved the idea that he could, like I did, find a source of comfort within. Because nothing else worked. He's told people. He's changed his route, trying to walk somewhere where bullies wouldn't invade his time.

They are everywhere.

He got up and showed us how they mock him. Holding his arm as if he had a physical disability, most probably cerebral palsy, and telling us how they walk behind him, mocking him, calling him 'Spaz.' He hates it. He hates the fact that their actions, their words, have taken root in him. The song, the workshop, mattered deeply to him. He sat with Joe, who has a wonderful singing voice, and the two of them sang the words to the song over and over and over again:

I'm OK with being me
There's no one I'd rather be
I've a peace within my heart
That your words can't break apart
I don't care what you say
You can't wreck my lovely day.

I can hear their two voices, entwined, singing as I type these words. I do not need the photograph to remember the two of them, intently, sitting together and singing. I could almost see the words enter into Stephen's memory. He wanted to remember. As they sang I thought of the little boy that I was when I first made up this simple rhyme - a boy who could never have imagined that one day he's be sitting watching another learn the words that he sung thousands of times to himself.

We visited with Stephen a number of other times over the weekend. We saw a remarkable strength in him. The strength to describe his life as full and happy, his parents and family as loving, his work fulfilling ... the strength to draw strength from his purpose - not to fall prey to the intention of bullies to knock down what he so carefully built. A life 47 years in the making, a life that cannot be destroyed no matter how often words strike at the foundation built.

Stephen went into town with some of the others, coming back and knocking on our door. In his hands he had small package. On a tag attached was written, "To Ruby." He and the others wanted us to take a gift back to the little girl who had been bullied and tell her that it came from those who wanted her to know, that it will either get better or she will get stronger.

That gift will be the first thing we deliver when we get home.

8 comments:

Nan said...

Wow. I just cried. That is one powerful experience, one powerful song, one powerful gift ... one powerful piece of writing. Thank you Dave and Joe and Ruby and Stephen (and the wonderful painting behind you in the video).

Anonymous said...

that is lovely Dave, thanks for sharing that it made me smile after a hard hard day surrounded by bullies passing themselves as managers. I am only just learning the duty to ourselves to protect our hearts and minds. I wish I too had had Rby's song when I was growing up

Tamara said...

I just had to come back and read this again. :-) Good night!

Colleen said...

Dear Dave:

What a powerful post! What strikes me is how strong you were/are to have created this song and what a gift it is to those you share it with - Ruby, Stephen, the others at your workshops, us on your blog.

Colleen

Andrea S. said...

Thank you for this post today, Dave. I remember when you were first deciding whether you should go public with this song (other than with Joe and Ruby) and how you struggled with that choice. Then it went more widely public than you had intended. So you shared it after all, and now it has become a powerful and important part of your training.

One thing I do wonder about. This song basically involves giving the self an ego boost, which I can see as a valuable thing when people around you are trying to tear you down. But what if there is someone whose self esteem is so smothered that they have trouble saying "I'm okay with being me"? To the point where they might struggle to internalize this song, to develop the sense of entitlement over it--i.e. that they have the right to heal themselves when hurt by others, that they have the right to claim themselves as being "okay" (and thus, "okay with being me") Has this kind of situation come up yet? Or is it something you anticipate maybe happening at some point? How might one handle that kind of situation?

Cynthia F. said...

Really powerful story. I love that Stephen came back with a gift for Ruby to comfort her.

By the way, I was watching the video and thinking what wonderful grandpas you and Joe make. Not that you're *quite* old enough, of course, but I think your love for Ruby and Sadie is like the love of good grandparents: unconditional, delighted, uncomplicated.

Jayne wales said...

Thank goodness that you have been able to help Stephen have something to wrap around his broken heart when people are so cruel. He only wants to give and share his love with people and he is repaid by despicable people hurting him. I have witnessed him being hurt by managers at social services who think it is fine to humiliate people in public, commenting on how much he was eating! Not that we put up with that comment!
Why can't people just be kinder?

Jayne wales said...

Thank goodness that you have been able to help Stephen have something to wrap around his broken heart when people are so cruel. He only wants to give and share his love with people and he is repaid by despicable people hurting him. I have witnessed him being hurt by managers at social services who think it is fine to humiliate people in public, commenting on how much he was eating! Not that we put up with that comment!
Why can't people just be kinder?