The little boy who could

Chris came to visit recently, and as we were cooking (he turned the pork chops), he told me about a new animated movie “Up.”

This, then, is the story of “Up with Chris.”

As many of my regular readers know, Chris is my mentally challenged buddy. I learned a long time ago that Chris knows what he’s talking about.

Through the years my love of movies has rubbed off on Chris. He told me once that he had asked his mom to buy him the movie, “Kung Fu Panda.” My response was, “Chris, you shouldn’t spend your money on junk movies like that!” Turned out the movie was one of the most popular in recent years.

As for “Up,” it’s been a big box office hit with rave reviews, a few suggesting it’s a shoo-in for a best picture Oscar.

I first met Chris, now 26, when he was nine years old. I was sitting on my front porch reading, when a skinny, red-haired boy came up and leaned over the porch rail. At that time, he had a serious speech impediment and kept talking about “Cha-wee.” I figured out he was saying “Charlie,” so I asked, “What does Charlie do?” The kid responded, “He cuts people open and takes their guts out.”

Charlie is his mother’s soulmate, and Chris had given me a perfect job description. Charlie is county coroner.

I learned that if I really listen to Chris or ask him a few questions, everything he says makes sense.

A keen sense of self-worth comes from having helped Chris through the years to better understand the world around him.

Once when we were preparing to watch the musical, “Brigadoon,” I sent him upstairs to get the “T” encyclopedia. Turning to a full page featuring the various tartan plaids of the Scottish clans, I explained about the gathering of the clans in the movie’s enchanted village.

“I know about some people like that,” Chris chimed in. “They’re bad people. They wear white, and they’re called the Ku Klux Klan.”

Master of the remote while here, he once watched a St. Jude Children’s Hospital telethon, and all he could talk about was how he wanted to help. So, I copied down the information, and his mother gave him money to send along. To this day, he believes he contributed to a cure for cancer. And, he did.

Through the years Chris and I have worked on building his vocabulary, and when his teacher gave him low marks in an awareness of what’s going on in the world, his mother asked me to help him with current events. I got into trouble when Chris once told Charlie not to “patronize” him, and again when he told them not to vote for “that damn Republican Bush.”

Growing up, Chris excelled at Special Olympics events, bringing home a handful of blue ribbons every year. He once pitched the first ball of Clemson University’s baseball season after being nominated by his teacher and winning a local TV station’s “Terrific Kid” contest. I embarrassed his mother when I broke the rules and yelled “Go, Chris!” at his high school graduation. At age 21, when law required he leave the public school system, he marched in cap and gown and received a special diploma. A very special diploma.

As Chris entered adulthood, still with the thought processes and innocence of a child, and as I began to have vision problems, the tables turned, and now he helps me. My mantra for him has always been, “Can’t never could do anything!” Now, I say that to myself on a daily basis!

As small a thing as it might seem, I cannot make it down the way to the apartment complex dumpster, so Chris takes my trash out. Imagine if I didn’t have him to do that for me. He loves to help me cook and helps me “see” when I’m doing household chores.

This young man, who never learned to read in all those years in school, never leaves home without a big stack of books. “My life is books,” he has said so many times.

Several years ago I was in the kitchen, and Chris was sitting in the living room looking at the pictures in his books. I heard him saying, “Once upon a time …” Tears ran down my cheeks to hear him “read.”

Last summer he had a new book, a beautiful, thick collection of the Dick and Jane stories from my own first reading experience. As I was telling him I learned to read from these stories, he said, “I can read.” So, we sat down, and read he did. The moment was one of the single most thrilling of my life. If I had only thought to tape it as he carefully pronounced words I didn’t think he could get past, like “something.”

I asked, “Chris, who taught you to read this book?” “I did it all by myself!” he exclaimed. He then told me he was sounding out the letters just as he does helping me find items at the grocery.

Since high school, Chris has been in a special training program through the Walgreen’s Distribution Center here in Anderson. The Center has been featured on national TV for its program to hire the mentally and physically challenged.

As we ate our meal that day, Chris explained that “Up” is an animated film about an old man who ties balloons to his house and ascends into the clouds to fly away to the dreams of his childhood. He then said he was reminded of the beautiful little film, “The Red Balloon.”

And, I was reminded, once more, that from the day I met him, the only direction Chris could have gone was up.

***

Chris comes this afternoon and will stay with me through June 26 while his folks are on vacation. Since Chris has never “read a big book,” we will listen to John Grisham’s “A Painted House” on tape. I will be taking a blog break until June 27 to better enjoy our time together. Please check back then! Thanks!