Laws can be passed, but then there are those who
can not directly attack the disabled person then turn on family
members who are around the defenseless one. This situation might
have been a little of all things and then, it wasn’t when
integration was being easily practiced either.
No amount of laws changed the attitude of the
general public. This had to come with time.
By this time we were totally out of the system.
Home schooling Kay, my youngest, was a choice I made because of my
ever, undependable health. With working at home I could devote all
my time to her in a one to one effort. All we had was each other
but, fortunately, that was all we needed. A sense of urgency for
seeing my children educated was upon me and I make no apologies for
that. What else could I have done? I just didn’t possess the
strength to take on all that we had worked through for my son. The
running back and forth, sports events, worrying through all the in’s
and out’s of high school hiatus. Physically I couldn’t do it.
Home schooling wasn’t an elective it was a
necessity. As it turned out the experience was so fine. Rhonda’s
learning had gaps in it and she was involved in working with Kay
while using the manuscript we took out from Calvert school in
Baltimore, Maryland.
Many hours were spent with the two pouring over
lessons.
The years saw Kay graduating with her Master’s
degree summa Cum laude, distinctive highest honors.
Mark worked in the hay meadows of the ranchers in
the area and often came in so tired, the boy would shower and then
drop in bed.
"That blasted old Mockingbird! What is his
problem?" Mark might be heard to complain in the early morning but
then off he would go back to the hayfields with only a mouthful of
something or another available along with a slug of milk.
After he was gone I stepped into the bathroom for
my shower and in the middle of the tub was a box, electric fan. It
was obvious that it had burned, even the plastic blades were melted.
"Kay!" I wiggled one of her feet just as my
Native American grandmother always woke me. "Do you know why there
is a burned fan in the bathroom tub?
"I threw it there last night. It caught on fire
while Mark was asleep and I smelled it burning. I picked it up and
tossed the whole thing under the shower and turned the water on the
blaze," she sleepily informed me and then turned over to go back to
sleep."