The kids in the area called our neighbor’s boy “40 watt” because he wasn’t very bright. Like the rest of us, Peter lived in poverty, but he didn’t realize it because he had Down Syndrome – a genetic disorder that disrupts brain and body development.
One day, as I charged out of the house pissed at yet another personal assault from the character assassin who postured as my father, I bolted past Peter sitting on the lawn staring at a weed. I asked facetiously, “What are you doing Peter, gardening?”
He looked up at me and smiled from ear-to-ear. “This dandelion flower has hundreds of petals.”
That stopped me in my tracks. I’m as ticked off as a trapped badger, and this kid is as relaxed as the Dalai Lama. Does he know something I don’t? Maybe I’m not living right?
I sat down with him and studied the dandelion. “It does have a lot of petals, doesn’t it.”
“Everybody calls them weeds,” he responded, “but they are really a kind of daisy. People kill dandelions but they keep coming back, so they are the toughest daisies.”
He was right; you can’t keep dandelions down. They are persecuted more than any other flower, but they consistently bounce back with a smiley yellow face – which was not exactly my current modus operandi.
A couple of kids rode by on their bicycles and hollered, “Retard!.” I got angry but Peter just ignored them.
I was reminded of something the philosopher Epictetus said: “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.”
Maybe Peter knows this intuitively, I thought. Nothing seems to faze him.
The next time my stepfather assaulted my character, I walked out quietly for some dandelion therapy. That became a pattern.
“Where are you going, Jan?”
“I’m going out for some dandelion therapy, mom. I’ll be back soon.”
She knew what I meant.
Courtesy of Pexels.com/photokip.com.
A few years after my family moved out of the neighborhood, I ran into Peter at a shopping mall. An ear-to-ear smile came over his face as he ran over to hug me. His mother told me he'd always considered me a friend because I was the only kid in the neighborhood who ever spent any time with him. This hit me hard as I’d had no idea.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to a concert at the library down the street, Peter.”
“Can I come with you?,” he pined, with a look that indicated he really, really wanted to go.
His mother looked on approvingly, so I took him to the concert.
After that, we went to the library every month for the free classical music concert presented by music students from the local university. They played everything from Dunstable to Dvořák.
It took Peter a while to absorb the idea that audience members shouldn't talk during the performance, so he smiled instead, and talked excitedly before and after the concert. He wanted to know what each instrument was called, how come the “’violins’ were different sizes,” why there were so many horns, and why the harpsichord didn’t sound like a piano:
“It looks like a piano. Can’t they afford a piano? We should give them our piano. Nobody plays it, you know.”
Afterwards, I’d take him out for a burger and a milkshake.
His mother said he couldn’t stop talking about these outings for days afterwards.
One day, when I came by to pick him up, Danny asked why I was wearing a leather jacket. “I bought a motorcycle, Danny. It can take me to many more places than my bicycle.”
“Can I ride with you?”
“Of course, that’s why I brought an extra helmet.”
“Where do you go on this?” I told him about Glacier National Park, Waterton National Park, Banff, Jasper, and many other places.
He pined that he’d really, really, really love to go there too. His mother looked on approvingly.
Shortly afterwards, I took Peter on a day trip to Glacier National Park. Each time I looked over my shoulder, he was smiling from ear to ear. He smiled riding through the city, across the prairie, into the mountains, everywhere we went. He wanted to stop at every scenic site, step in every creek, walk on every trail, talk to every tourist, and try every ice cream cone. He never complained and took nothing for granted.
His mother said he was exhilarated for weeks after we returned home.
Glacier National Park. Courtesy of Pexels.com/Nathan Steele.
I was struck by the fact that it took so little to bring so much joy into his life. He savored each moment like it was his last.
Peter died at age 18 from congenital heart failure; common at that time for people with Down Syndrome. I wasn’t heartbroken. I’d venture to say that in his short life, he smiled more than most people who live three times as long.
Some might say that by the philosopher’s standard, he’d mastered life.
Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/Sharefaith.
