Chapter 18
Melmark is still so new and shining a miracle that our sense of indebtedness to these children whom we serve grows with the years.
These children have altered me; they have, at times, given me far more than they themselves have gotten. I feel much like the “old woman who lived in a shore” with my expanded family of ninety-one. the population explosion that has occurred at Melmark during the past five years has to be seen to be believed.
And from each child I have relearned valuable lessons in humility, in honesty, and in humor. And perhaps the most satisfying lesson of all, I have learned not to be swelled up by pity for them, but have learned to play, to laugh, and to cry with them!
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Now that it is all over, I can laugh about Jimmy and his tub bath——or was it a shower? Paul was at choir rehearsal. I was stretched full length on the sofa—-shoes off—-a Doris Day movie on TV.
There was a knock at the door.
“Jimmy won’t take his shower. He’s really high, kicking and yelling and won’t get off the floor. Clyde’s on duty; he thought maybe you could——-“
I got to my feet, both knees touching each other. I looked around me, but the apartment was just as empty of reinforcements as it was before. I talked to myself en route to the boy’s wing. So he’s sixteen——I’m forty-seven! And I’m almost as tall as he is! And I’mm the boss’ wife! And besides, I’m supposed to be smarter! By the time I arrived at the hall of the boy’s wing I was fairly confident.
Jimmy was on the floor, head wrapped in his arms——a belligerent teenager.
“You get off that floor this very minute!” that was almost a full short!!! (I was really quite proud of myself.)
When he stood up in front of me, I swallowed a quick gulp of air. I kind of shoved him into his bedroom, which took him by surprise, but he immediately plopped down on his bed and looked at me defiantly through half-opened slits of brown eyes.
“OK. Now you start to undress!”
His left arm was twisted and stiff, and he fumbled slowly and clumsily with his buttons while I drummed my fingers on the windowsill and stared outside.
He dropped his shirt on the floor and followed it with his shoes and socks and pants. Brace buckles which held a corset like arrangement with a U-shaped device under both arms completely encased the top fall of his body. I wanted to reach out and help him, but something in the way he kept staring at me prevented me from offering my services.
He kept on talking——but not to me. I had a feeling it was just as well I could not figure out what he was saying.
Suddenly he stood up in his underpants and T-shirt. The braces klunked to the floor noisily. He gave a jerk at the waist of his underpants.
“Wait just a minute! Wait till we get to the bathroom.”
The hall was narrow and lined with nine other boys in pajamas, all showered and bathrobed. We ran the gauntlet of their self-righteous looks and arrived at the square little bathroom where the “Battle Of Armageddon” was about to begin. Clyde popped his head around the door. His face had a look of undisguised admiration.
”If you need, I’m out here,” he hissed through the crack.
I shut the door behind us. The moment of truth had arrived. If there were going to be any possibility of a defeat, I preferred it to be both personal and private.
I arranged the damp shower curtain inside the tub and adjusted the temperature, When I turned around, he was squatting on the toilet—-underpants on the floor. My face reddened.
You prig! I scolded myself. You have been married twenty-seven years and raised three boys.
But when they got to be sixteen years old, I didn’t have to shower them, I protested weakly.
Time was slipping by. He was putting me on!
“C’mon, stand up now, and I’ll help you off with your shirt.”
I grabbed at his arm.
“I’m having a bowel movement.”
“Well, keep seated then for heaven’s sake!”
The minutes sped by. It was growing into a sit-down strike. I herded him up by both of his arms and looked behind him. The toilet bowl was as clean as a wash basin. Ho-hum, my lad.
“Off with the undershirt,” I said cheerily. It peeled off without a tussle.
Jimmy peered through the shower curtain at the small stream of water. His cocoa-brown eyes were circles of terror.
“Turn it down!”
It is as far down as it will go and still let some water out. Now step up into the tub.”
“I had a shower last night——-“
I know, but here at Melmark we take one every night. Why, even I take a bath every night.”
“You do?” Jimmy studied me with interest. He gingerly put one foot over the edge of the tub, and then his other foot joined it while he seemed to be thinking about my hygienic habits. Eyeing the stream of water, he cowered at the farthest end of the tub. The warm clean water ran merrily down the drain, unshaped,——unsullied.
I reached in through the shower curtain and wet the washcloth, soaping it well. He shrank as my hand approached, so I very calmly handed him the washcloth. He rubbed his right arm halfheartedly.
“Good boy! Now step forward into the water and rinse the suds off.”
He didn’t budge. His arm was slick as glass and after a few attempts to pull him, I reached through the other end of the shower curtain again and rinsed the washcloth. I now had soaked the top half of my dress and neck pretty thoroughly. But I grabbed the cloth and dribbled the clear water over his soapy arm.
It was going to rather a long, shower. His right ear was closest , so I quickly swiped at it. this he manage to dodge rather effectively, I retrenched and let a few warm washcloths full of water roll down his back. this seemed to be neutral territory.
By now his body was glistening—-whether from the shower or the sweat of fear, I did not know. I decided that I had best declare an armistice while I was somewhat ahead in this seesaw battle. Perhaps tomorrow I could change tactics and give him a tub bath. ( if only I could find the plug for the drain.)
He stepped out on the bath mat, and I reached in and turned off the the drain.)
He stepped out on the bath mat, and I reached in and turned off the water.
“Not so bad, was it?” I asked a bit dubiously.
Jimmy just grinned at me and handed me the towel.
**************
And then there were those children who literally tore our hearts out, and whom we were not able to successfully reach.
*************
The familiar beep of the intercom summoned me.
“You’d better come down. Bobby has started hitting himself again. His face is a mass of purple bruises. We’ve tried everything——threatening, loving—-nothing works!”
On the way down, I tried to think of a plan. but I was just as fearful as my husband sounded on the intercom.
We met in the center foyer. Paul was holding both of Bobby’s hands and taking soothingly to him.
“Daddy will come in the morning, Bobby.”
Bobby’s face was terrified, his unhappy blue eyes darted wildly every which way. His thin face was already beginning to blotch and swell. I reached for his hands but he jerked free of my grasp and struck himself with such a resounding thwack that he cried out in pain. I did not turn away. Instead I spoke to him very sternly.
“That was a very silly thing to do.”
Deliberately he stretched out his arm and stuck himself with all the strength he could muster. It went through me like a shot.
I caught his two hands and held them in mine.
“Let’s go upstairs to the apartment, OK?”
Jabbering nonsense all the way, he walked up with me to the third floor. While I opened the door, I had to free one of his hands. Again the resounding smack made me wince. Inside our apartment, I tried a new approach.
“Now, Bobby, I am going to let go of your hands and you and I will sit down and listen to the music. You must not hit yourself , do you understand?”
His answer was a stony-eyed look and a forceful hit against his bruised temple.
“Go ahead, if you like the feeling of it. Hit yourself all you want to.” (His mother had used this approach once with success.)
He struck at his face again and again. Then, just as quickly as he had started, he stopped and ran to the earphones on our stereo set, He clamped them over his ears fiercely. Throwing himself down on our chaise lunge, he began to rock back and forth. The tension seemed to ooze out of him. I lifted one earphone away from his ear and whispered,
“ I love you, Bobby.”
He threw me a quick bunny like emil. I popped a peppermint between his puffy lips. He leaned forward and pecked me very carefully on both cheeks. My knees were like jello as I turned my back and dusted the dining table, watching him as nonchalantly as possible.
His worried eyes followed me wherever I moved. Then his eyelids fluttered and drooped. Between his forefinger and thumb he rolled two wadded balls of paper. Just as Bobby nodded off, his tense body gave a convulsive jerk. Terror-stricken, he dug between the crevices in the pillow. A contented smile suffused his bruised countenance when he found them.
Suddenly he whipped off the earphone, put them down, and announced quite matter-of-factly, “Go to the bathroom now.”
I watched in mounting concern as he left to walk to the bathroom. He handled his problem with a haste that almost amounted to panic.
Once his “musical helmet” was securely in place again, he smiled at me angelically. I sighed deeply.
It wasn’t long before Bobby dropped off to a shallow slumber dotted with jerks and twitchings. I studied his shattered features—at rest at last—and thought, How long——how long will this combination work? For I was not rolling myself. This was working for now, but what of the next time—and then the next? who—what could keep him from destroying himself? For the Bobbys there must be a reason too, God. Is it so that we throw ourselves with more abandon into Your arms. for help? So that we no longer trust in “ horses and men” but in Your knowing what is best for our special children? Those who drain us and empty us until there is nothing left but a simple childlike reaching out to find where You are?
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But for every seeming failure, there are this successes that buoy us up.
Five-year-old Markie’s IQ was 66 when he was admitted. It amazed me that he was not classified “educable” for he was exceedingly verbal’ but I was told professionally that his attention span was immeasurably brief and his retention faculties virtually nonexistent.
But Markie was a delight, full of pop-eyed curiosity, and a charming chatterbox. He added humor to many otherwise routine happenings. Like the day when he involve himself in our fund-raising efforts.
It was a Sunday afternoon that we loaded the station wagon with some toddlers and drove to Swarthmore to pick up our Jewish friend, Mrs. T. she had tele[honed earlier that week and expressed a desire to see the new developments at Melmark and in particular how the elevator construction was coming. It was her foundation that had given us $10,000 toward the insulation seven months before.
On the way over, inquisitive Markie asked where we were going.”To pick up Mrs. T.”
“Who is she?”
“Mrs. T is the kind lady who gave Melmark the money to buy our new elevator.”
He received this astounding piece of information in complete silence. And we rode quietly along.
When we had seated Mrs. T. in the front seat with Paul and myself and beaming introductions had been made to all the toddlers, we three in the front seat began to converse together. But Mark interrupted as though he had been primed and duly automated.
“Thank you, Mrs. T.’ for the money you gave to Melmark for the alley-vator!”
It was so stilted, I almost gagged. She turned around to look at him in surprise.
“why, isn’t he the smart one!” she enthused, “ Now, how in the world did he ever know about that?”
I felt a little chagrined. “I told him who you were as we drove over here.”
My explanation seemed to please her. She devoted the next five miles to chitchat with young Mark. Mark blossomed, and by the time that we pulled around Melmark’s driveway, he was self-appointed tour guide for our visitor, a comic situation over which I had no control. He talked as rapidly as a toy machine gun.
“This is Mrs. T.! Say hello to her! Mrs. T., this is the toddler’s dining room where the kids eat who don’t know how to.”
“And this is the occupational therapy room, Mrs. T.” it looked as though we had rehearsed him for weeks. Finally our tour was over. I had not been able to turn him off.
The final touch came, however, when we sent him down stairs for his evening meal. He reached up on tiptoe to kiss her good-bye on her rouged cheek and then he spoke up pertly, “Don’t forget to give Mr. Krentel the money, Mrs. T.”
I thought Paul was going to clobber him. Instead, he turned beet-red.
“If he isn’t the most adorable child!” Mrs. T. said, patting Mark on the head.
But I had to straighten him out.
“Mark, Mrs. T. has already given the money to Melmark for the elevator. And the elevator was just delivered yesterday. so all the contractor has to do is to put it in place. So you should say thank you. Besides, it’s not nice to ask for money!”
He was adamant. “But, maybe she has more money,” he piped up happily.
I pushed him, none too gently, toward the door, praying that he wouldn’t open his mouth again. We were all laughing heartily. She, even more than the rest of us.
“Tell me,” she said, “ is he Jewish!”
We said no, matter of fact, he was not.
“Well, whatever you do, don’t ever let that child go. Why he’s the best fund-raiser you have.”
But in ten short months Markie’s IQ had jumped eleven points and he was now ready for transfer to another school. while we hated to see our little solicitor leave us, we were elated over our first graduate.
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“Loud as a whisper.”
She smiled, she responded to our every command, but not one audible word was spoken. She wrote sentences clearly and legibly but only shuffled nervously and awkwardly when prodded to answer us.
Nan, a twenty-year-old girl with a diagnosis of “Chronic Brain Syndrome evidenced by mutism, motor retardation and below-average intelligence” had been living at Melmark for almost three years before the big breakthrough.
Nan’s failure to communicate verbally was obviously another symptom of her very submissive personality. He shoulders were stooped, her head hung low, and her steps were slow and halting. When required to speak, she would raise her head almost painfully and squeak out a one-word answer. Each word was accompanied by an upward jerking of aNan’s head and shoulders.
Speech therapy was continued, using the Loudness Monitor, a tape recorder, a self-hearing device called Tok Back, picture cards, conversation techniques, and the guarded optimism of our well qualified speech therapist, Drick.
In his own words he reports,
“All of Nan’s progress was solely in therapy. There was no transfer into the hustle-bustle world of Melmark. Nan was still merely lowering her head and submissively plodding through life.
“It was then that I began to realize that Nan viewed speech therapy as a short respite from her confrontations with the world. It was a brief moment to relax. Every day we would work on some phase of improving communication; every day Nan would do fairly well in this highly structured environment, and every day she would leave Classroom Six without the tools necessary to relate to other. This pattern was becoming deeply imprinted on Nan’s personality.
I decided that formal therapy was useless.
“From that point on, I began a relationship with Nan that might help her in many varied situations. We were as brother and sister. We arm-wrestled and ran races. I tickled her until she was forced to yell, ‘Stop it!’ No longer was she the fragile doll, not to be touched for fear of breaking.
“We utilized play-acting. She was the victim of ‘Chou-Pan,’ a merciless Oriental who delighted in the use of the famed Chinese water torture ( several drops of water dripped from a straw onto Nan’s head). Nan became the teacher trying to help me overcome my shyness; Nan assumed the role of boxer attempting to work with her trainer for an upcoming fight.
As the weeks passed, Nan fell into the spirit of the game. She told Chou-Pan in no uncertain terms that she did not (with inflection, no less) like either him or his torture. She got angry at my slow progress in overcoming my shyness. She became determined to win the hypothetical boxing match, and her practice punches into my hand held new force. As the punches became stronger, so Nan’s personality strengthened.
“I then attempted to put Nan into a position where her newfound emotions would cause her to speak. I told her that she was going to have a special supper that night. It was to consist of fried ants, fly soup, a tossed caterpillar salad, and boiled mouse tails. She was obviously revolted.
“‘What then,’ I queried, “do you want instead?”
“ I was amazed at the menu this young lady produced. How long, I wondered, had she wanted to tell someone about her favorite dishes?
“Nan and I planned jokes on her classmates. I would wrap Nan’s head in gauze and smear red food coloring onto the bandages. Then Nan would calmly walk back to class. When she arrive, all eyes were on her. She was the center of attention.’’
“As her classmates fired questions at her, Nan would firmly reply that she had just been given a little beating by the teacher because she mispronounced a word.”
Nan continued to use her newfound tools of communication in her bedroom, the laundry, and throughout all of Melmark. It is a brighter, happier Nan that walks through the halls today. Hearing her speak is like a voice from the dead. We only see it as yet another of the miracles at Melmark.
