Personal Narrative: My Disability

A piercing, blood-curdling shriek rattled my eardrums. I sighed. I could feel a lump in my throat, overwhelming exhaustion pulled on my teary eyelids. All around me, children ran and forced smiles, whispering to one another as they tried not to notice the girl screaming in the corner. And across from me, a wailing ambulance, was Lauren. Earlier that day, when I first arrived at camp, I hopped out of my car with a grin. I had worked with people with special needs for much of my life, so I felt prepared to handle any disability thrown my way. It was something I had always loved and felt I had a knack for. This camp wasn’t different than other programs I had been involved with, I’d be paired with a camper with autism and would be their “buddy”
throughout the week. I promised myself that this would be the best week of my camper’s life, and I wasn’t expecting anything less than that. And I certainly wasn’t expecting Lauren. I made my way over to where the kids were waiting with their parents.
And that’s when I saw her. A dismantled peach in her right hand and a smudge-covered iPad in her left, she stood absentmindedly staring into the distance, quietly humming under her breath. I introduced myself to her and her dad, who replied with a bird-like squawk and a firm handshake, respectively. Once her father left I turned to Lauren, who was analyzing me with squinted eyes, and I made the biggest mistake I would make that week: I showed her our schedule. Seemingly harmless at the time, this simple action would be the catalyst for a full blown tropical storm. I pointed out the activities we would be going to: field games, swimming, and a handful of others. But there was only one activity that caught Lauren’s attention. She looked up at me with wide eyes, “Climb tower?!” I grinned, feeling encouraged, “Yes! We’re going to climb the tower!” She giggled, pointing at the tall structure in the distance. And then I said the most soul-crushing word that an impatient, excitable pre-teen girl could hear: “Tomorrow!”. It was as if I had told her the world would burst into flames at noon. A mixture of confusion and intense anger flooded her face. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she slowly opened her mouth, taking a deep breath. Then, the storm hit. Her ear-splitting shriek sent shock-waves through the area. As the other campers watched in horror, she thrashed around on the ground, her tears splashing me like ocean spray. I tried to calm her down, but to no avail. I checked my watch - it had been ten minutes since I had arrived at camp. I took a deep
breath. When I got in my car at the end of the day, I immediately burst into tears. Crushing despair, frustration, and exhaustion weighed heavy on my heart after nine hours of tantrums. I felt that I had failed Lauren, her family, the camp. And more importantly, I felt like I had failed myself. This was something I had always loved - what if I wasn’t cut out for it? What if I wasn’t as good as I thought I was, what if I couldn’t handle anything? As the week went on, I realized that I, indeed, had failed. I hadn’t given Lauren the best week of her life. I couldn’t handle anything. There were tears, there were tantrums, she even tried to bite me a few times. So by my own standards, I had failed. But in Lauren’s eyes, I was anything but a failure. It wasn’t the best week of her life, but she could tell that I wanted it to be. She knew that I would wring out my sopping wet shirt just to dry her tears, or do a crazy dance just to make her laugh. She knew that no matter how many times she asked about climbing the tower, I’d always promise that we would. And for her, that was enough. Just being there, taking the time out of my life to be her friend was enough for her. Maybe I had failed myself, those self-expectations impossible to reach. But I knew that I hadn’t failed her, and the exhaustion and tears were worth it all as I watched her, radiant at the top of the tower, cawing like a bird.