There's no clipping the wings of Super-Girl

At their best, journalists are supposed to speak truth unto power. Sadly, too many utter power unto truth. And one of the fundamental truths of the modern age is that the most vulnerable members of our society, and thus those as Catholics we are supposed to defend, are the handicapped. At every stage of their lives they are targeted: in the womb, when they are older, when they cannot speak for themselves.

This was made startlingly clear for me when my sister gave birth to her second child. Katie was born several weeks premature and spent rather a long time in hospital. She came home accompanied by a nursing team, to a house wired for oxygen. Katie had two strokes when she was tiny and is now classified as being autistic. This, by the way, after an abortion had been suggested earlier in the pregnancy.

Much as we congratulate ourselves on our liberal attitude towards those who are different, we regularly discriminate against the Katies of the world. Goodness me, her mum and dad have witnessed it for years. Even had to change church because their daughter was not accepted. “Of course you are welcome here, but some of the members of the congregation are disturbed by the noises your daughter makes.”

Don’t get in the way, don’t speak too loudly or make any of us, the lucky ones, feel in any way uncomfortable. There’s a ramp out there so you can get in, but once inside you better conform and shut up. We’ll fine people if they leave their cars in handicapped parking spots but won’t turn a hair if they talk to handicapped people as if they were dumb animals.

Katie can do jigsaws like Super-Girl. She starts not from the outside but from the middle. The complex shapes that so baffle us take form perfectly in her beautiful mind. Wonderful pictures come alive and speak. Speak in a way Katie cannot. Hey, she’s not “like” Super-Girl. She “is” Super-Girl.

She doesn’t have an extensive vocabulary, even though her parents have added speech therapist to their many other roles. But sometimes words aren’t so important. I remember arriving in England for a vacation and Katie walking straight up to me, grabbing my hand and taking me to a chair. She’d been told by her parents that I would be tired after the flight. She then began to talk to me as if I’d never been away. The conversation had never ended, the bridge of love had never been closed.

It’s true that she doesn’t always look you in the eye and that her attention seems to wander, and that she appears to be distracted. Unlike, of course, those people who always look you straight in the eye and seem to take in every word you say. Then forget your name and care not a fig for your life and anything in it.

I sit down and chat to my sister. Has it been difficult? “Yes, but also joyous beyond belief. A new adventure every day and a new path of discovery.” She pauses. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. Katie has made us all grow so much, taught us things we didn’t know about ourselves, about what it really means to be human. Yes we cry, but yes we laugh. Actually being a mum to Katie is all about saying yes to things. Yes to life, yes to love. Yes.”

At which point Katie trots her way into our conversation, into our world. She wants to watch an old video of The Jungle Book. She’s seen it hundreds of times, but that doesn’t matter. It pleases her and she learns from it. Katie doesn’t need the latest, expensive toys or fashionable luxuries. She’s so much more than that. Perhaps so much more than us.

I increasingly believe that the handicapped are God’s gift to us, to act as a catalyst to produce and provoke love in hearts that are sometimes hard and cold. I know that Katie is such a gift, and I know she can teach us all so very much.

Fly Super-Girl, fly Katie, and never care for a moment about those who would clip your wings.