Mary Carol
12-03-05, 12:10 PM
By Maura Conlon-McIvor
A fertile revolution against the status quo carved the
social landscape of the 1960s. The events that riveted us
to the TV mirrored another experienced in our home,
albeit one with a quieter face. Joe, my youngest brother,
was born with Down’s syndrome. In the ‘60s, mental
retardation wasn’t cause for flowers or marches on the
street. It was hush-hush news.
The scientific explanation for Down’s syndrome echoes
as a fait accompli: A genetic abnormality occurs in
mitosis with an additional 21st chromosome, accounting
for an array of developmental and physical challenges.
As a kid this meant little to me, beguiled as I was by the
poem my mother had placed next to Joe’s crib: A
meeting was held far from the earth. It’s time again for
another birth, said the angels to God above. This child
will need much love.
I was in the second grade when Joe was born. My
parents didn’t learn of Joe’s diagnosis for months, but
they weren’t fools to the obvious. Joe’s “difference”
settled over the family like a dense fog. Dad, a special
agent for the FBI, assumed a deeper gravitas. Silence
burrowed into our already quiet household. My mother
shed tears over dessert. We kids went underground.
Finally, my teacher, a concerned nun, rang one night,
asking my mother why I’d become so sad.
Her phone call instigated what would become the first of
many Conlon Family Meetings, presided over by my
mother. We had reached the official switchback going
from Life Before Joe to Life After Joe. In the world of the
1960s, my brother’s birth was a tragedy. Our mission, if
we chose to accept it, was to discover what the tragedy
masked. Instinct would be our guide, as would the radar
bleeping from our hearts.
I don’t want to romanticize the notion of mental
retardation. Such oft-called “accidents of nature” can be
cause of real heartbreak. The boy you envisioned as star
quarterback learns to tie his shoelaces at age ten. The
girl who might teach physics instead boards the bus for
special school. Opportunities have widened in recent
years for people like Joe. Still, these children are
paradigm busters. You don’t hear them mentioned in
wedding vows. And mothers and fathers who devote
their lives to raising these kids worry about their care
when the parents are gone.
But I was Joe’s sister. SOJ. Sister of Joe, the person who
helped him brush his teeth and get into his pjs at night. I
was the pathologically shy kid and he the severely
retarded one. Together we made our way into the world.
Joe spoke with a quiet animation. I learned to understand
him by peering into his eyes, deciphering his mono-
syllabisms using a combination of intuition, pantomime
and later sign language. I discovered he could learn
words using lyrics so I’d play the piano and he’d sing
along as best he could. Ours became a language similar
to music, enveloping the heart’s larger truths so often
constrained by human words.
Soon enough, my shyness morphed into the palpable
hope of learning to scatter joy the way Joe did. My
brother was the king of collapsing space and time. After
school he’d stand on our corner sidewalk, and wave to
car after passing car. The drivers, coming home from
work, would crack a smile, some rolling down their
window and yelling hi back. Joe approached people in
restaurants, markets, theaters, ball parks, surprising
them with his eager handshake and clumsy hello.
Nobody was a stranger to Joe.
My father, the special agent, was a gravely quiet and
sometimes a cynical man. After biting into his sandwich
one day, he quipped that normal people were really the
retarded ones. His work in the shadowy underworld no
doubt contributed to this sentiment. But I knew what my
father was saying. Joe held the mystery of love that melts
the walls we “normals” spend our lives constructing.
Joe made sense of nonsense by teaching us how to live
in the moment.
The human heart is wired with an innate intelligence.
How easy to forget this when we are preoccupied with
pursuing “intelligence” of another kind. These days
when fear of the other so pervades our culture, I am
grateful for the greatest lesson I learned from Joe: our
world is made by our reaching out and saying a clumsy
hello.
A fertile revolution against the status quo carved the
social landscape of the 1960s. The events that riveted us
to the TV mirrored another experienced in our home,
albeit one with a quieter face. Joe, my youngest brother,
was born with Down’s syndrome. In the ‘60s, mental
retardation wasn’t cause for flowers or marches on the
street. It was hush-hush news.
The scientific explanation for Down’s syndrome echoes
as a fait accompli: A genetic abnormality occurs in
mitosis with an additional 21st chromosome, accounting
for an array of developmental and physical challenges.
As a kid this meant little to me, beguiled as I was by the
poem my mother had placed next to Joe’s crib: A
meeting was held far from the earth. It’s time again for
another birth, said the angels to God above. This child
will need much love.
I was in the second grade when Joe was born. My
parents didn’t learn of Joe’s diagnosis for months, but
they weren’t fools to the obvious. Joe’s “difference”
settled over the family like a dense fog. Dad, a special
agent for the FBI, assumed a deeper gravitas. Silence
burrowed into our already quiet household. My mother
shed tears over dessert. We kids went underground.
Finally, my teacher, a concerned nun, rang one night,
asking my mother why I’d become so sad.
Her phone call instigated what would become the first of
many Conlon Family Meetings, presided over by my
mother. We had reached the official switchback going
from Life Before Joe to Life After Joe. In the world of the
1960s, my brother’s birth was a tragedy. Our mission, if
we chose to accept it, was to discover what the tragedy
masked. Instinct would be our guide, as would the radar
bleeping from our hearts.
I don’t want to romanticize the notion of mental
retardation. Such oft-called “accidents of nature” can be
cause of real heartbreak. The boy you envisioned as star
quarterback learns to tie his shoelaces at age ten. The
girl who might teach physics instead boards the bus for
special school. Opportunities have widened in recent
years for people like Joe. Still, these children are
paradigm busters. You don’t hear them mentioned in
wedding vows. And mothers and fathers who devote
their lives to raising these kids worry about their care
when the parents are gone.
But I was Joe’s sister. SOJ. Sister of Joe, the person who
helped him brush his teeth and get into his pjs at night. I
was the pathologically shy kid and he the severely
retarded one. Together we made our way into the world.
Joe spoke with a quiet animation. I learned to understand
him by peering into his eyes, deciphering his mono-
syllabisms using a combination of intuition, pantomime
and later sign language. I discovered he could learn
words using lyrics so I’d play the piano and he’d sing
along as best he could. Ours became a language similar
to music, enveloping the heart’s larger truths so often
constrained by human words.
Soon enough, my shyness morphed into the palpable
hope of learning to scatter joy the way Joe did. My
brother was the king of collapsing space and time. After
school he’d stand on our corner sidewalk, and wave to
car after passing car. The drivers, coming home from
work, would crack a smile, some rolling down their
window and yelling hi back. Joe approached people in
restaurants, markets, theaters, ball parks, surprising
them with his eager handshake and clumsy hello.
Nobody was a stranger to Joe.
My father, the special agent, was a gravely quiet and
sometimes a cynical man. After biting into his sandwich
one day, he quipped that normal people were really the
retarded ones. His work in the shadowy underworld no
doubt contributed to this sentiment. But I knew what my
father was saying. Joe held the mystery of love that melts
the walls we “normals” spend our lives constructing.
Joe made sense of nonsense by teaching us how to live
in the moment.
The human heart is wired with an innate intelligence.
How easy to forget this when we are preoccupied with
pursuing “intelligence” of another kind. These days
when fear of the other so pervades our culture, I am
grateful for the greatest lesson I learned from Joe: our
world is made by our reaching out and saying a clumsy
hello.