Ksmiley/LittleKrissi
My Garden Court Journal

When it comes to mental retardation, so many people do not understand or care. You see, I have a friend who is mentally retarded. I prefer to say mentaly handicapped. It sounds more pleasant and it does not sound so harsh.. She is a sweetie. I wish "other" people would see her that way, a sweetie. She does get on my nerves sometimes but that is something I can easily overlook that. Everyone gets on everyone's nerves now and then, right? Anyway, Catie, a special person she is, is someone I have learned to love because Catie is Catie. I think that mentally handicapped people have their own wonders in life as intelligence and understanding of things introduced to them. In the onths I have unknon Catie, I have found observant and always questioning this or that about something especially the major things in life. We had the ambulance come the other night because of a tenant having some troubles and in the middle of the night Catie called me asking if I knew why the ambulance was here and what was it here for. I did not know because I did not know and I did not even know it was here until I had heard a familiar vehicle sound. She has never called me in the middle of the night like she did the other night and it disturbed me very much that she called to find out what was going on. She had done something inappropriately and I was not too thrilled. Her phone call could have waited or should not have been made at all. Sometimes Catie's actions annoy me but she is a sweetie.

I have known Catie for a while now. The way she talks, with emphasis at the end of her words or sentences have gotten used to but it took me a while to get used to the way she talked. Now I do not even notice her emphasis on her words or sentences. I do have to admit, though, she did scare me at one time and I did not want to be near her. Now it is quite the opposite. I want to be her friend and help her understand the "things" of the world. I learned to love her like a mother would her own daughter. As a matter of fact, I love her like a mom does her daughter. She is the daughter I never had. She is a part of my life now, annoyances and all, and she is very special to me. She is mentally handicapped, yes, but she is like everybody else in this world trying to live a normal life in this so-called big world, and I see that it can be very difficult for her at times. People do not understand her. People do not understand special people like Catie who have retardation involved.

What is wrong with some people in regards to mental retardation? I do not see anything wrong with mentally handicapped (retarded) people at all. They are slower in things, yes, but people look at them more than just being slow in these eyes of mine. I am physically challenged with a mild case of cerebral palsy and some people look at me as a "retard" too because I look different. It was several months ago that I was told by my stepfather that people will look at me as a retard because I hang around mentally handicapped people at times. That really made my heart ache and I did cry about it for days after that. I was in a program called UCP (United Cerebral Palsy) Apartment Living Program for ten years uo until March of 1998. My mom took me out of that program for reasons that she thought that I was not at all benefiting from the program and there were small argument about my emotional welfare being in the program. Even though I had not been in the program for four years now, I have made friends with many people who are still in the program and all my friends are challenged either physically or mentally. I believe that mentally challenged people are people too who need to live in this BIG world of ours normally. Define normal please.

What has this world come to? Where is this world going? What is wrong with people?