Sammy Every Sunday

I remember supressing the anguish rising up in my ten-year-old soul when he threw himself desperately into the arms of my parents.  He knew the visit was coming to a close.  One of the "attendants" had to help pry him off my mom.  I looked away and instantly smashed the image of his pain into that little black box of my soul that I kept padlocked.

Despondent and crushed, his wails of grief echoed through us all the way home, but we pretended not to hear.  This time we did not stop to unwind and decompress at the bowling alley at 6th and Sheridan as usual.  This time we did not talk much on the way home.  It was a particularly painful good-bye.  My parents must have been wondering why.  It was always bad, but this was horrible.  Was Sammy being abused?  Had there been a violent incident this week?  Their little boy who was now 13 routinely had bruises, so how could they know?

His range of human emotions seemed completely normal, although their expression was unbounded; the look in his eyes was intelligent; how could this brother of mine be determined to be "severely mentally retarded?"  His vocabulary of 20-odd words frustrated him beyond limit.  It sometimes consisted of several four-lettered ones, and when he became frustrated in his attempts to communicate, he would routinely strip off his clothes, yell out a string of words, and run across the field where we played with him every Sunday during nice weather.  I would watch my folks do their best to catch him and get him dressed again.  Sometimes I rooted for Sammy and sometimes I rooted for Mom and Dad, but mostly my heart just ached.

Along with the chokingly pungent odor of the resident hall where Sam lived, those images of his profound grief and anguish were most impressed upon my mind, body and soul.  He was freed from his institutional dungeon in 1975.  Not an easy exit, but a brutal violent death.  Poor Sammy--his life was tragic in so many dimensions and his death was just as full of anguish.  However, to this day, I believe that not only is he our guardian angel, but he is in a place of ultimate love and transcendence.  He can finally articulate his emotions, and he never has to say good-bye to our parents again.