Starting Young

Mommy's problems with details and not quite getting things right started when she was a kid in the country. Not everything went right there, either.

Where Mommy grew up in Maine it snowed a lot. So, when it started to snow, people would head home. One day my grandpa noticed that it was going to snow, so he left work and headed home. On the way, he picked up Mommy at her school in a nearby town. He did not leave soon enough, however, and the snow started while they were still leaving town. Once they were in the country and the foothills to the White Mountains, the snowstorm turned into a blizzard. The road got very, very slippery. Grandpa drove very, very slowly, but he could not see the ice because it was underneath the snow. The road made a sharp turn, but Grandpa did not. The car slid off the road. Grandpa could not get it out of the ditch, so he told Mommy to wait in the car and he would fetch the nearest neighbor, Donald Gates, who lived a couple of miles down the road.

While Mommy was waiting, a man appeared outside her window. Mommy was afraid. She did not want to open the window. Grandma had always told her not to talk to strangers. The man was insistent, however, so Mommy rolled down the window just a crack.

"Do you need some help?" asked the man.

"No," said Mommy. "My Daddy went to get Donald Gates."

"Then I had better wait with you," said the man.

"Oh, no," said Mommy, who was now alarmed. "You don't have to do that. Donald Gates lives really, really close. He and Daddy will be here any minute."

The man insisted on waiting, no matter what Mommy said. Mommy rolled up the window really tight and tried to ignore him. Where was Grandpa?, she worried. When would he get back?

After a while, Grandpa finally appeared. Mommy was really relieved, even though he was alone. Now he would get rid of that man. Grandpa came close, and Mommy rolled down the window. Then, Grandpa did something unexpected. He held out his hand to the strange man.

"Hi, Donald," he said. "I was just looking for you."

"So your daughter told me," the strange man answered.

Conclusion: Sometimes help is closer than you think it is and looks different than you think it does.

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This story is excerpted from a collection of vignettes that I helped Doah, my severely mentally challenged youngest son, to write and publish several years ago (copyright 2003). It was my attempt to help him understand literacy and the purpose of writing and reading.