Christmas party is pure joy

A narrow window in the front door of the Walter S. Christopher School, 50th and Artesian, reveals a vision straight out of Lourdes: empty wheelchairs and braces lining the walls, aluminum crutches and wheeled gurneys, straps, pads, restraints, special shoes.

A reader invited me to the school's Christmas party -- not an event that would typically send me rushing to Gage Park. But the last sentence of his e-mail mentioned the "twisted limbs" of the students there.

Just what kind of school is this? I asked. He answered that Christopher is a public school where most of the students have disabilities.

As a child, I was afraid of the handicapped, particularly disfigured people. Most children have that fear, which diminishes with adulthood but is still there, submerged. I could miss an ordinary party -- we're all busy. But if I skipped the Christopher party, I would always suspect I was doing it out of reluctance to confront life in all of its complexity.

Besides, students from St. Ignatius College Prep were running the party, and if they could go, so could I.

The empty hall and its implements were immediately replaced by a bright and hectic classroom. Tobi Abegunde, 16, in a red Santa suit and white false beard, was handing out a pink soccer ball to Josephina Herrera, 13, while other kids tore open their presents. One girl observed the scene with a cynical eye.

"Santa isn't black," Abigail, 13, typed snarkily into the laptop device she uses to communicate ever since she lost the ability to speak in a car crash. Her teacher gently but firmly suggested that she wouldn't have to accept her presents if she felt that way.

She took her gifts.

In the hall, I ran into science teacher Mary Meade, who guided me through the school, room by room.

"It's a happy place," she said. "But I cried every day the first year I was here."

We passed the infirmary, where there were eight, count 'em, eight nurses on duty.

"A lot of our kids are tube-fed,'' Meade said. "There are so many different diseases here."

Maybe so, but you kept forgetting that. All was jolly bedlam, carols being sung, cards made, dances danced. There were kids racing around playing musical chairs, and kids who would never take a step, kids who had won a place in the district science fair and kids with the minds of babies.

The school was built in 1927 to house students with polio, so it has no staircases. About 15 years ago, they began letting non-disabled kids in, and now they constitute about a third of the school.

I met a serious second-grader whose name is Dwight D. Flores, who was named after Eisenhower. Another who wants to become a judge "to help people and be nice to them." Thinking about careers is encouraged here.

Paul Lewis, a seventh-grader, and I had a serious conversation -- he wants to be "a scientist and a dad" when he gets older.

There were 100 St. Ignatius teens all over the place, handing out Barbies and telescopes, footballs and video games. They hugged and talked with the Christopher kids, held hands and helped open presents.

Jamal Webster, 23, works in the development office at St. Ignatius and was part of the group that first visited Christopher, seven years ago.

"They're very sensitive, good kids,'' he said of the teens, who undergo brief training before they arrive. "They have a great time."

I was there for almost four hours -- to their surprise and mine -- and watched the St. Ignatius high schoolers closely. If one of them held back, or looked bored, or was anything other than keenly focused on the Christopher kids, I never saw it. Amazing.

In the afternoon, there was an assembly. I took a seat on the floor next to a pair of boys who both wore padded helmets. One of the boys kept wordlessly tapping me on the arm and gesturing at some St. Ignatius students, who performed a dance, then at a teen playing Christmas songs at the piano, as if to say, "Look! Look at them dance! Look at her play!"

"Even though we have these kids with disabilities, we're not restricted," said Adrienne Watkins, the assistant principal. "Everyone takes part. It's hard to understand if you don't see it."

I thought I understood, gazing around the room. Not only understood, but felt a moment of joy. Is this not the best of what we are? Our society -- dominant, money-crazed, steamrolling Western culture -- nurturing the most afflicted among us, enfolding them in care, encouraging them to enjoy life to the fullest that they can? And the Ignatius students -- on a school vacation day -- about as far from the cliche of the indulged teen imaginable, not only giving of themselves but grateful for the chance. It seemed a glimpse of heaven.

When my editor asked me if I would promote our Season of Sharing charity that aids underprivileged children, my answer was immediate:

"Are there no prisons?" I asked. "No workhouses?"

Of course I turned her down flat -- I know my readers, judging from your e-mail, and you are a flinty lot not about to waste much sleep over the so-called "plight" of the so-called "poor."

She looked hurt, and claimed that I had promised I would.

Right. Like I'm going to do that.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to call the woman a liar to her face. So here's the drill -- follow the instructions on this page and send in some of your hard-earned money, and we'll pass it along to these children.

I couldn't in good conscience suggest that you perform such an outrageous act without trying it myself -- I may be grumpy but I'm no hypocrite. So I ponied up $50, as an experiment, to see if I was then suffused with any warm glow.

Nada. Nothing. Just the sinking feeling of more cash out the window. But why take my word for it? Give it a try, send in a small donation -- consider mine the bare minimum -- and see if I am not correct. If I can part with it, you sure can.