Week 13

This is an attempt to "pre-write" the most significant experience I have had at my field site.

I have volunteered several times now at the Northside Middle School in Muncie, Indiana. The football field where we meet is far from lush. Most of the grass has turned a muted brown color in the briskness of early winter. I step onto the typically dirt field to be engulfed in mucky mud. I look around and see this situation through biased eyes: I am not in a good mood, the weather is bleak at best, and I am cold and damp. This whole organization seems to be centered around discouraging circumstances. I emerge from around a concession stand used for junior high sporting events and all of a sudden I see several athletes talking, their voices blurring together like a melody. One particular athletes comes toward me, half running, half hobbling. Her disability renders her muscles limp and weak, much like those of a toddler. As she approaches me, she gives me a warm, open smile and greats me with slurred words. 

"I have a dog. He had puppies! One brown one and one black one."

"He did!?" I lead. 

I have heard this story at every practice since I have been volunteering. Each week this athletes tells me about her dog and the new puppies born to it. Each week she volunteers this information as if it is brand new. She offers this portion of her life as a token of friendship, the one exciting event in her life that she can remember. Unfortunately, she cannot remember that she has shared this with me many times. 

 I have heard that they are brown and black. She cannot seem to remember much else. Every practice ends with her continuing to share these two bits of information, and I leave slightly discouraged at the delay in her progress to socialize typically. Today as I leave, this athlete does not proceed to tell me about her dogs, which I have heard about for the past hour. When I begin to walk away, the athlete follows me and grabs my hand. This physical contact startles me; it is the first time she has initiated intimate contact. Her hands are smooth, like someone more naive and less tortured by the world's circumstances. Her skin feels blissfully unaware of hard reality. She takes my hand and holds it for a few seconds and smiles at me. Then she looks me straight in the eye and says the word "friend." This one word melts my negative feelings, my rough exterior and allows me to see the beautiful friendship that has begun to form as a result of the Special Olympics.