Unique

Ok the first time I remember meeting someone very different from myself was meeting my “uncle” Roger. (not really my uncle but one of my cousins uncle, kinda confusing) Anyway, he was older then my aunts and uncles and he was always very loud, very easily excitable and he drooled a lot. That’s what I remember right away. But then I remember asking my mom why he was like that and she said he was born that way. She explained that I was born with brown hair and my sister Crystal with blonde and Roger was just that way for that reason. I’ve heard some awful things that my cousins said about him, making fun of him to his face and behind his back. He was the sweetest guy I ever knew and he played with us outside all the time and I remember he was super good at Hide-and-Seek!
I was curious about why he was like that but once I got an explanation I was totally fine with it. I never felt like he was that different. He just seemed like a really big kid. I never understood why my cousins were embarrassed by him or anything. It wasn’t his fault and I actually had him come to school once for show and tell. He was a collector of keys and he must have had 3000 at the time. (I know his collection is up to 7000 now) He doesn’t know where they all go or if they unlock anything, he just had shoeboxes full of keys. His brother Ray, my actual uncle, brought him and 3 shoeboxes to my school so he could tell us a few stories about them. He was so cute! I remember being mad that someone asked Uncle Ray what was wrong with him, right in front of Roger. Didn’t these people see that there was nothing “wrong” with him? That he was just a little different? I was in second grade, so what is that like 8 years old?
My mother set me up for life with her explanation. I never find people weird. I love to use the word unique and I love different people. I volunteer at a summer camp for kids with Autism one week a summer. I would love to be able to be there for all 3 weeks but it feels like I never have the time. In high school I worked for REM, where we had a client who had some kind of disability, either mental or physical or both, we spent the afternoons with them and some weekends. It was great! I loved that job. I also worked in a nursing home for 4 years and thought that was great too. I love old people. They tended to be a lot hard to love too because they were so fragile. It could be my weekend off and I would come back to find that someone had taken a turn for the worse and died over the weekend. I volunteered in the twin cities to work at the different homeless shelters and aids hospices’, now that was an eye opening experience. I’ve been to gay/lesbian rallys, political things, a night without a home. I’ve tried to stay open-minded and experience new things. I want my world to really see everyone in it.