Lessons Not Learned In School

by Liz Burke

Today I went to see my friend Alex. It had been awhile since I saw her last, and I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe the smiley little girl who laughed at the word “sock” and always had an opinion on everything that I knew from my childhood. It was an unreasonable expectation, I suppose, but I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Alex, to me, was my little buddy. My best friend. My “almost sister,” as I wrote once in third grade. I loved that little girl.

Of course, in some respects, it isn’t really fair for me to refer to her as a “little girl.” She was older than me, for goodness’ sake! Older, I recall, by exactly one month and twenty days. She was a September, and I was an October. We were the oldest in our class. Alex could have gone to school a year earlier, but her mom, like mine, had opted to keep her back. The reasons for why she stayed back and why I did were as different as night and day, but I never cared. On the other hand, at her full adult height of four-foot-seven, she was a good half-foot shorter than me. I used to wish I was shorter so I could be more like her.

I met her when I was four. When we moved in, I didn’t know a soul in my new neighborhood. So I did what any child would do – took refuge on the new swing set in my backyard. I remember that nearly every kid in the neighborhood came over to greet me, as I sat on my swing. But, thirteen years later, the only one I remember being there is Alex.

I don’t know why I was so drawn to her. She was adorable – a little dark-haired, freckle-faced, four-year-old, much smaller than myself. But I know that wasn’t what led me to talk to her. Whatever the reason, I’ll always be glad I did. That little smiley girl was going to be the best friend any child could ask for.

Alex had Down’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects brain development. But I never saw her as being any different. I mean, she had a severe speech impediment. I guess I knew that, but for some reason, I don’t remember ever struggling to understand her. I was the only one around other than her family that could. Experts will tell you that the young mind can pick up languages much faster than the adult mind – me being only four, it was easy to understand her “language.” I don’t know how much of that I believe. I guess that’s the scientific explanation, but I’ll always believe I could talk to her because we were the same.

Other than her speech, I don’t know that I ever saw anything else that was very unusual. She couldn’t do the same schoolwork or read at an early age. So what? I would have killed not to have to do those math problems! And when she watched movies, she would seem to slump a bit, which her mother attributed to having low muscle tone. I didn’t know what low muscle tone was, but I didn’t think too much about it. It didn’t affect all the great times we had.

She loved forts. What kid doesn’t love a fort? Ha. You never saw OUR forts. They were incredible. The original fort, I believe, was centered around a Pocahontas tent, but we soon learned to get creative with what we had. And what did we have? Couch cushions. Seemingly, hundreds of couch cushions. I’ll never know where her mom acquired all these cushions (they didn’t have more than one couch), but they were the source of hundreds of hours of amusement. Alex and I would line them on their sides and make giant pillow forts with roofs, stools, blankets, and of course, a great big “No Boys Allowed” sign. The Boys, as we called Alex’s little brother AJ and his band of friends, were behind the destruction of more than one great fort. Nevertheless, the “no boys allowed” policy held for many years, until, in the interest of the hangout’s welfare, we called a truce and allowed them to infiltrate the fortress. Alex and I were rather surprised at how much fun it could be to have boys around. Who knew?

When we weren’t fort-building, we were playing other crazy games. Alex and I invented quite a few of these, the one I remember most being “Sixteen Legs.” Why Sixteen Legs was actually fun, I can’t understand for the life of me, but we had some great times with it. I suppose it was the novelty of allowing the imaginations of two six-year-olds to run rampant in a dark, unfinished basement. The game centered itself around an imaginary beast with sixteen legs trying to eat us. The only way we knew to escape was to follow “clues” written on the ceiling of her basement to find the way out. This was probably the strangest part of the game, being that Alex couldn’t read. Therefore, she would point to the ceiling and say, “A clue! A clue!” (mind you, this was LONG before the dawn of “Blue’s Clues”), whereas I would “spot” the imaginary clue and read it to her. The rest of the game was us puzzling what the answer to the clue could be, and solving it just in the nick of time, when the fearsome Sixteen Legs was right on our heels. I remember counting down from ten when we knew it was getting too near, reveling in the very real fright that you could, at any moment, be caught from behind.

We weren’t always playing imaginary games, though. We loved kickball in her backyard with The Boys, and freeze tag was always fun. One particularly unforgettable game of freeze tag, I let my ego get the better of me as I turned around to gloat at The Boys, who had caught everyone else. “You can’t catch me!” I yelled, running ahead with my head turned. As I looked forward again, I found myself face to face with a large yellow slide. Freeze tag ended with a bloody lip and a bruised ego.

Alex loved video games. And I mean LOVED them. She was better than me at most of them, but then again, everyone was. For how much I liked them, I sure stunk. The only game I was really good at was Mario Kart 64, which everyone acknowledged. Everyone, that is, but Alex. She was one worthy competitor. Together, we discovered a feature we didn’t even know existed in that game – and to this day, my brother refuses to believe it does. One day, while racing on Choco Mountain, Alex and I rounded the last bend, neck and neck. As we zoomed across the finish line, we held our breath, each hoping we had prevailed. But all of a sudden, we realized – we’d tied! Mario Kart 64 went into “Photo Finish” mode, replaying the final moment before declaring a winner. Neither of us was paying any attention to who had won, though. We were far too busy yelling, “What the heck?!?!” I’ve never seen it happen again.

We were trendsetters. Alex and I were the Spice Girls’ biggest fans during their rise. Choruses of “Wannabe” could be heard at any given moment during the bus ride to school. Boy, did the older kids hate us for that one. My friend Alissa Coffey used to sing with us, dubbing our trio, “The Never-Ending Radio.” We heard more than a few complaints, but rolled our eyes and sung louder. Later, in the late 90’s, Britney Spears replaced the Spice Girls. We once danced in a talent show to “You Drive Me Crazy.” I was Britney… but let’s not discuss that. In 1999, my prized possession was the CD Millennium by the Backstreet Boys. Alex gave it to me for my tenth birthday.

Alex’s mom worked at Gap. She was the most stylish girl in school. I wanted everything she had. One time, we went to the Gap Outlet, and I found a shirt that was just like Alex’s. I bought it in a heartbeat, and we used to coordinate when we wore it and match at school. Unfortunately, my ten-year-old self wasn’t very neat or tidy, and I spilled something like spaghetti on the front. To take out the stain, my mom tried to bleach it, only succeeding in making a large, unsightly ring, which she tried to fix by bleaching the rest. The very disturbing result was a faded, spotted T-shirt I could only mourn. Luckily, for Christmas, I received a sparkly sweater and shiny top. All was forgiven.

She loved spaghetti, ketchup, and cream cheese. Not together, mind you, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d tried the combination. Alex was notorious for putting ketchup on everything. And I do mean everything. Bagels, grilled cheese (that one was actually good), chips… the list goes on. She was picky, but throw a little of the red tomato-y stuff on anything and she’d gobble it right down. She’s probably responsible for my unhealthy love of ketchup on weird things like salmon. (Cue disgusted groan.)

Alex threw parties. Big parties. Not just big in the sense that there were a lot of people there, but physically huge. Her family used to sponsor annual parties for the Down’s Syndrome group Alex was involved in. They ordered moonbounces. Not those little dinky kind, either. The real things. Major bonus of being Alex’s friend – I got to jump on them all I wanted before the party started and I’d actually have to wait in line. Once, I spent the entire day outside with her. Alex was Italian, and she didn’t get sunburned. My little Irish self wasn’t so fortunate. Around dusk, I got a terrible headache and had to go home before the party was over. Turns out, I’d gotten sun poisoning. I do remember that that particular party was one of the best, though. Probably why I’d chosen to spend the whole day outside.

There were probably about 200 people at all these parties. She hosted a bunch of neighborhood parties, too, like when we used to light luminaries and put them around the development at Christmas. I think they still do that. We’d ride in the back of a pickup truck (hooray, illegal activity), and all the local boys and girls would come, too, and we’d stop every hundred feet or so to set out luminaries. Then we’d light the candles inside and the whole street would be lit up and shining in the dark.

Her smaller parties were amazing, too, though. Her ninth birthday marked the occasion of my very first sleepover. I’d always wanted to spend the night at her house, but had never been allowed to. This year, I finally got to do what I’d always wanted to. We played limbo and Nintendo and partied until 4:30 A.M.. I was horribly cranky the next day (unfortunately, my relatives took this convenient time to visit) and spent a few hours asleep in my room.

So when I was going to see her today, all this was running through my head. I wondered what she would look like. I saw her last when we were fifteen. She was a little taller, a little bigger, but she was still the Alex I knew. I remember thinking how amazing it was to have a friend like her. Other friends grow apart with time, but going to see her was like picking up where we left off. So when I saw Alex from across the room at the truck-stop we’d agreed to meet, I couldn’t have been more floored. What had I expected? Certainly not this beautiful, seventeen-year-old girl standing in front of me. She looked so mature and grown-up. I smiled. “Hi!” I said, running towards her. “It’s so good to see you again!” Alex grinned from ear to ear. She gave me an enormous hug and said, in her way that was so genuinely Alex, “Good to see you too!”

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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