A New Perspective after Spending the Day with Severely Cognitive Impaired

Friday I spent the day in an adult special education class. I have done this many times, but never in this particular room.

One of the classes I have spent time in, they learn how to fill out online job applications. Some of them can fill them out, others are only learning to point and click in each of the spots and typing the first letter of their name. In another class, I sit down and give them a bunch of socks and evaluate how well they sort them. Then there are many other activities in between of varying difficulties.



For some caring for the cognitively impaired
is a daily reality.
Bless those people.

The latter group is considered severely cognitive impaired. I knew that the classroom across the hall had the same classification and had stepped in that classroom long enough to fulfill the staff requirement while someone else stepped out, but never truly spent time in there.

Well, Friday I subbed for that classroom all day. These people ranged from 13 to 26, and only one out of eight was potty trained. He couldn't button up his own pants. The rest had to be changed. One I had to feed, and what surprised me was that the simple task of swallowing food was not automatic for him. He had to be coaxed to do something that six-month-olds do automatically.

Then I saw the lessons we had for them. They were such things as pick this item up, hand it to me. Then they were graded on how well, they managed this task. Another was to look at an item and compare it to pictures of the item. This was a rather difficult task for one particular individual and he was of higher functioning than many of the others.

This experience made me realize I have been very self-absorbed lately. I have been dwelling on the fact that my house, despite having a beautiful little girl, a husband, my sister-in-law and her husband living there, feels empty. The thing is, I forget too often how blessed I truly am. I can walk, talk, have complex thoughts, eat without problems, use the bathroom with ease, have relatively good health, and yet I always, always want more.

My expectations on God exceeds what I deserve. I am a sinner. I am a human. I am a mom. I am a wife. I am a daughter to two living parents. I am a granddaughter to one living grandma. I am a sister to numerous people, all of which are still living. And most of all...
I am blessed.