I can't be wordless Wednesday.

Imagine this was your house, full of everything you own in the world.  And imagine that one of those cars is your family car, a modest vehicle that took you years to save up for.  All gone now, in a four alarm blaze.

photo courtesy of Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal

One of my sister's students lived in that home.  He's an autistic middle school student (my sister teaches special education) who, according to my sister, is one of the sweetest students she's ever had and does not have the complete capacity to understand what has happened to his home.

The family has only the clothes they were wearing when they ran out of their burning home.  When my sister provided him with all new school supplies and asked him if he wanted to go put them in his locker, he said no because he wanted to carry them around all day.  These school supplies were now the only things he owned.  When my sister asked him if there was anything she could get for him, he said, "I need a home."

Four families lived in that home and the mayor has graciously put them all up in a local hotel and is helping them find new homes.  In addition, the school is having a fundraiser and and holding a collection for items for the families.  However, this is a generally economically disadvantaged city and it is a great burden for them to lose everything they own.  This isn't something they will recover from easily, especially for my sister's student's family, who has to care for a special needs adolescent in addition to putting their life back together.

What infuriated me, though, was my sister's account of the other kids at school.  This student does not have the capacity to understand that when people are making fun of him and laughing at him, they are not simply talking to him as friends and laughing with him.  Apparently, he is the butt of many jokes on a daily basis.  They tell him to do and say things just so they can laugh at him.  They smear barbeque sauce on his pants at lunch and then make jokes about how he defecated on himself.  He laughs along with them, thinking this is what friendship is, only to have them laugh at him even more.

My sister unleashed on them on Monday, informing them that if this continued, they'd have to answer directly to her.  (Which is the case ordinarily, but I get the impression that she seriously gave them the what-for about this.)  I sent her a "Good for you!" email but sat there and wondered about those parents.  I know they're struggling.  I know raising kids isn't easy, much less in an inner city environment.  But there HAS to always be time to teach courtesy.  I know kids are mean (I was the butt of many mean jokes growing up, often on a daily basis, like any other fat kid) but to pick on someone who 1) does not have the capacity to understand, retaliate or keep up and 2) just lost everything in a fire?  I have no words to describe how angry that made me feel.

Unfortunately, the district my sister teaches in is the sort where you're lucky to get four parents show up out of a class of twenty-five for Parents' Night.  These parents work long hours and often multiple jobs just to make ends (not) meet.  They don't have the leisure of sitting at a desk and reading articles about how parental engagement in children's education is vital for success.  They're too busy working hard to get by.  So I don't know how these kids can be reached.  I know my sister is doing all she can, but her influence only reaches so far.

My thoughts go out to her student, his family, and the other families who lost their homes.  I hope they find peace and security soon and that the community outreach is significant enough and of enough help for them to get through this.

Comments

[Melissa]

Oh Candice, my heart is aching for this boy and his family. When I was 8 we lost everything but the clothes on our backs in a terrible fire, as well ... and it was horrible, scary, traumatic, devastating, you name it ... and none of us had autism to complicate things. :( I am so very sorry for this little boy and his family for their loss, but also about how he's treated at school. How could kids be so cruel?! Makes me want to cry. :( I hope the community does pull together. I know we found support in surprising places and hopefully they will, too.

[Candice]

@Melissa: I absolutely cried as I read my sister's emails and clicked through the various photos of the damage on a local news site. She gave more examples of the things the kids at school do, but I just couldn't bear to write them out.

My last semester in my MA program, a friend's house burned down and she and her family lost everything - from their clothes to their computers to all the work she had done for the grad program, and even their cat. A large group of us got together to collect and help them out and in a couple of months, they were much better off due to great community help, but all still suffering from the trauma of the event. Experiencing a fire is probably my number one fear in life. I'm so sorry that you had to go through it, especially at such a young age.