Curriculum/Methodology
Life Lessons I Have Learned From Charyl - Part 1
 Last June at this time Charyl was struggling medically but recovering. I was trying to prepare something to say at the LDA eighth grade graduation. Charyl was not one of the graduates. I thought, “if Charyl had not become ill she would have graduated to high school with those kids, but if Charyl had not become ill there would not be an LDA today.” I tried last June to prepare something for students and parents that would make the connection between Charyl’s struggles and our school. I outlined a talk about the lessons I have learned from Charyl. I had it all planned out in my mind, but emotionally I could not give it. Charyl is on the list of LDA graduates this year, so to recognize her and to send off the graduates I would like to share with you now some Life Lessons I Have Learned from Charyl. I think they are important lessons and I think they are lessons she learned at least in part, from her days as a student at LDA.
Lesson 1 - Make the world around you a safer place.
There has been a lot of talk about safe schools over the last couple years. The mission of LDA is to create a safe place for children to grow up and I think we have been quite successful in meeting that mission. One of the biggest challenges LDA graduates have is moving on to large high schools that are clearly not as safe as LDA. But one thing I’ve learned from Charyl is that each person can do a lot to make the world around him or her a safer place.
The world has for a long time been threatening and frightening to Charyl. She has lived with a threat to her life and with repeated experiences of pain. She has created two effective ways for making that world safer for herself. The first way is that she always takes charge of what is happening to her. She demands information and she insists on routines. Whenever she encounters a medical procedure she wants to know exactly what is going to happen. She tells doctors and nurses and caregivers, “tell me what you are going to do before you do it”. She also insists on a simple routine, which is that she gets to count to three before the needle goes in or the procedure begins. No matter how bad it is going to be, she takes charge in that one little way.
I think this is an important lesson for students and people in general. If you are afraid of a situation, like a new school, get as much information as you can. Find out what the schedule is, what the rules are, what the expectations are, who the important people are and so forth. With information in hand you can start to relax because you can begin to know what you can do and what choices you have. Make a plan to take charge. No matter how difficult the situation is that you face, you will always have some kind of a choice. You can ask for that choice and make sure that you get it. In Charyl’s case she has had to endure many different difficult procedures, but she always seizes the opportunity to decide the exact point the procedure begins.
The second way Charyl makes the world safer for herself is that she reaches out to other people. I am always amazed by Charyl’s strength in this interpersonal skill. Even now she uses it daily. One of the best examples of this technique I can think of, is her elevator behavior. Charyl and I and her mom have made many trips back and forth to hospitals. Many times our trips were to Duke Hospital in North Carolina. We would drive out for a surgery or a chemotherapy treatment, and a few days later drive back. We’d make it into a little vacation. Even when Charyl was very small she had a unique ability to make those trips fun and to interact with strangers in the places we would stay. Sometimes she was bald and frail, other times she would have bloody bandages on her head or fearsome scars with big stitches, but she would always have a smile on her face. We would get on an elevator together and I would be quiet and private. I’m shy by nature and would usually move to the back of the elevator and avoid eye contact with other riders. Charyl would have none of that, even though other riders were obviously shocked by her appearance. She would get on the elevator and smile at the other passengers. She would pick out one of the passengers and select something she liked about them. And then she would look them in the eye and tell them. She’d say to a mom, “You have a very pretty baby” or to an older lady, “The color of your blouse looks really pretty with your eyes”. And it was amazing, before the elevator stopped that other person was in love with Charyl. They ignored her bald or bandaged head and saw her as a courageous person. Often they would approach her later and talk with her, or come up to my wife or I and comment on how much they appreciated her.
The lesson here is that people are approachable and they love to hear good things about themselves. If you are in that new school or new job, a positive comment to a teacher, fellow student or worker, can do wonders to make that place a safer more positive place for you.
Lesson 2 – There is no such thing as a bad day. Charyl has had some terrible times. When I think about what she has endured since she was 5 years old I simply cannot imagine it. I observed it all but I still can’t imagine what it is like to be her. I’m 52 years old and I’ve never spent a night in a hospital bed. I’ve had one out patient surgery and a couple of root canals. How does someone tolerate, day in and day out, for 10 years, the pain of headaches, and surgeries, and treatments and a body that has turned on you. I don’t know how she does it, but somehow Charyl maintains that there’s no such thing as a bad day.
No matter what she’s been through Charyl insists on finding some way to have fun each day. Even now when she has so little function left she smiles about simple things like a fresh orange or an email message from someone she doesn’t know or a Mad Libs game with a friend, or a hug from her dad. Maybe its because she knows her life will be short that she appreciates every day and seeks always to find something to be happy about, but I think it is simply a choice she makes each day, a choice she makes because it works.
She remembers with great fondness the days we traveled to my former school each day for a year during her chemotherapy. She was sick most every day and the 45-minute car trip was not always easy for her. We always carried a throw-up bowl and often had to stop when her stomach became upset. At Monroe School she could barely get through the half day of school we scheduled for her and often she had to come sleep in my office. But when she thinks of those days she remembers the people who accepted her without question, the simple pleasure of an assembly or performance, the joy of winning a prize in a fund raising contest, and especially the rides each morning with her dad.
Charyl has every reason to look back at the many struggles and tragedies of her life and think that life is a terrible negative thing. Instead just the other day she said, “Dad, I think I’m pretty lucky. I know I have a tumor but I have parents who love me and a good home, and I’ve never had a cavity.” I don’t think that statement is naive, her experiences of the pains of life have been too real. It is a choice, a choice to accept life and to judge it each day as good.
Lesson 3 - Friends will get you by. Charyl has many good friends and she relies on them. As I told you last week Charyl has few friends her own age but she has many adult friends. She gets two or three visits, and two or three emails, and two or three cards every day. Some are from people who know her parents, some are from relatives, some are from strangers, but most are from people who for one reason or another have become her friend. A good example is the Hot Dog Lady. For the last two or three years it has been a Saturday morning routine for Charyl and I to go down to the Brighton Farmers Market. I’d have my coffee and when Charyl woke up we would head down. A couple of times we rented a booth ourselves and sold Charyl’s jewelry, but most of the time we just shopped. In the middle of the market there is always the Hot Dog Lady and Charyl would usually want to get a hot dog. Over the weeks and years she made the Hot Dog Lady into a friend. Charyl would strike up a conversation and end up talking for 5 or 10 minutes while I went around shopping. Last year when Charyl was getting very sick I shared a Friends of Charyl newsletter with the Hot Dog Lady, but until then she knew nothing more about Charyl than what Charyl had told her. This spring when Charyl & I didn’t show up at the market I got a call from Paula. She introduced herself as the Hot Dog Lady and said she missed Charyl and asked if she could come and visit. She’s been to see Charyl twice now, one time bringing hot dogs with all the fixings.
This story is not unusual, I could tell half a dozen. Charyl loves people and she has a special way of making each friend feel special and listened to. She is loyal and accepting and never has a critical word for her friends. Her favorite cousin, a teacher in his late 20s who lives in California, recently wrote this to Charyl; “There is no one in my life that I have stayed as close to as I have with you for the last 7 years. Staying close to people is hard for me. You are one of the only people that always genuinely seems happy to hear from me.”
Charyl is not shy about asking her friends for what she needs. When she is having a hard day she will insist we call one of her friends and ask them to come and visit, and when she has a friend close but she feels tired or sick she simply asks them to leave. Charyl has taught me how important friends are everyday. She has taught me that you make and keep friends by being genuine and loyal and giving love without conditions.
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