Learn to love without labels

The birth of Trig Palin has jarred a memory of a student I taught in the late 1970s at Washburn School, a day institution for students with disabilities in LaCrosse, Wis.

Joey B. experienced Down syndrome, was the youngest of 13, knew about a dozen curse words (pronounced perfectly and in order) learned from siblings and self-determined. He had great potential, had to learn some appropriate behaviors and skills, and “unlearn” a few.

When I drove through LaCrosse 12 years later my brother Michael and I were in line at a Burger King in LaCrosse. Behind the counter was a young man with a familiar look. We made eye contact.

He was Joey!

I was nervous and curious, as Joey had once said to me, “Go to hell, you big lug!” This time he took his Burger King hat off, placed it on the stainless steel serving shelf, walked around the corner from the grill toward me and said, "Hi, Mr. Lug!"

Joey lived in a group home, worked 20 hours a week, participated in Special Olympics and had a small cadre of friends. Our primary goal as teachers was to prepare him for life. Today, students with disabilities and their families are fully included in neighborhood schools and taught functional academic and wellness skills to live a healthy and fulfilling life, including supports to transition from school to work. People with disabilities need opportunities to build relationships with community members so they are viewed as people first (not defined by label of disability) with the same needs for love, friendship, inclusion and meaningful participation.

Trig will do well and contribute to our Alaska community, with the appropriate supports. The leadership for positive inclusion happens every day in, as Mother Teresa put it, doing “small things with great love.” For example, when you hear the term “retard” used as a put down, kindly intervene and request that the individual involved express frustration in a more appropriate manner.

Vaclav Havel — playwright, dissident, prisoner and former president of the Czech Republic — writes about “leadership from the heart.”

“The power for authentic leadership is not found in external arrangements, but in the human heart,” he writes. “Authentic leaders — from families to nation states — aim at liberating the heart, their own and others’, so that its powers can liberate the world.”

Material reality, Havel claims, is not the fundamental factor in the movement of human history. Consciousness is. Awareness is. Thought is. Spirit is. These represent the essence of reality and are the inner core values and dreams from which oppressed people have gained the leverage to lift immense boulders and release transformative change.

Finally, the birth of Trig brings to light an opportunity for all of us to see the world as one community and for all of us to be more loving and kind — beyond tolerance to love.

We embrace and welcome Trig.

Paul Maguire is a Palmer resident.