The field trip definitely provided me a bit of a different insight of what I expected. I was just expecting to go through the motions. However, deep inside I knew that the people at AFI would leave a bit of an imprint in my life. And they did. Their spirit and energy of life was contagious. The way the people who were there smiled and just wanted to engage in conversation. How they made you feel welcomed and appreciated that we were there made the biggest difference for me in a personal level. They showed so much love and appreciation, that you can not help but smile and laugh with them. Granted the people we interacted were on considered in a higher level, but they still made an impact on me. In some small way they showed me abandon love.
Rereading the 30 pages of "The Boys Next Door", did give a better insight for attending the field trip. It gave me a perspective that disabled are a bit different then us, but they are human that have real feelings and hopes and dreams just as the rest of us. Just because they are in a different level on intelligence dose not make them any different. For example the relationship between Norman and Sheila reminded me of a relationship I witnessed at the AFI. There was this lady named Amber, and she was quite but picked up swiftly on things that we said (with Alyssa), and there a gentlemen who walked around to our table, can not remember his name, and was like this is my girlfriend Amber, and he had the biggest grin on his face... and Amber smiled with the biggest grin as well. This was so precious to see people who just care about one another and not looking at anything else but to have someone who cares for them, someone who is there for them no matter what. Just like in the play when Norman accidentally sits on the flowers that Sheila brings him, and how she does not make a big deal of it but is just happy to be in the presence of Norman. The people just wanted to be accepted and be part of society.
It was interesting to witness that people with spinal bifida were there as well. Taking embryology and learning about what spinal bifida is and how people are infected illustrated that it can be any one of us in that place. God has been really working on me and opening up my eyes to different diseases and disabilities and looking beyond the physical aspect of a person, but their soul. Let me tell you these people have one of the most beautiful souls I have not seen in a long time.
The play and the essay did give a rounder and better experience on this field trip, it gave me a broader mindset and allowed me to think outside of my own understanding. Rereading it also reassured the things that I have been processing lately of looking into the Image of God, and people who are disabled.
I want to end with this, that in my bioethics class I was reading about the disabled association, and how they stated, "that anyone of us can be in that category, we do not know what holds for us tomorrow."
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