Picked up Flowers for Algernon today (by Daniel Keyes) in Mrs. Young's class. Mrs. Young is the English teacher I tutor for at William Penn High School for girls. I tutor once a week at three different schools. Anyway, I picked up this book mostly because Charles Huff, one of the students I taught last year, whom I was particularly close to, talked about it so much. I finished it tonight. And cried real, wet tears for the first time in months (since I read Love Story, the night I was sick and couldn't sleep when I visited Dad in Argentina last Christmas.)

Ronnie's expressed a curiosity to see me cry. I wish Ronnie could have seen me! Mostly so he could see what reading a good book can give you and how it can affect you so totally. It opens up other worlds and experiences than ones we know. Maybe that's why books were an escape for me as a child from unhappy family situations. Once Ronnie said that he was really curious to know what a "high" from pills was like and that someday he was going to find out. He's seen so many people he knows on pills, I guess. But, Lord, if only seeing people he knows and loves, laugh and cry and get immersed in a book would whet his curiosity and desire for reading! Even to read Your Word more.

The book made me think about so many things hit me in so many ways. God doesn't make mistakes so what right does the world have to say, "Oh, isn't that a shame," and to dehumanize a retarded person? I remember an incident with Reverend Drury and his twenty year old son, Davie, who is slow. It was at our annual staff retreat at camp, during a "coffee break." Davie was standing at the coffee window and Reverend Drury, a dynamic, driving, busy, but at the moment, tired man, came up behind him, put his arms around him and said, "How's Davie? Have any words for your poor old Dad?"

Davie just slipped his arm around his Dad and they stood there together. This experience stands out in such contrast to the experience of the fictional Charles Gordon! Davie might have escaped notice with so much going on at the retreat, but Reverend Drury needed that moment of love and affection from his son.

One thing that really hit me was how starved Charlie was for warmth, love and affection and how he latched onto Alice who met those needs and how he realized what happening and had to fight it so hard. I could identify. That's what happened when Ronnie started to spend time with me and gently touch my hair or the back of my neck as he passed by or sit up next to me in the car, and at the table. I'd never had any love or affection from my Dad. When I was little I’d tell people I hated him, like it was some sort of fact in a book – snow’s white, water’s wet, I hate my Dad. And Papo quit holding me on his lap, letting me sleep with him, telling me stories, and carrying me piggyback when I came back to live with him and Mamo. I was thirteen. We hadn’t seen each other since I was nine or ten. He came in the bedroom one night when I was putting on my night gown, and I grabbed a cover, and it seemd to hit him that I was “grown up” now.

I already cared about Ronnie and what was going to become of him. Who wouldn’t? He and his life story could touch anyone's heart! But his being so sweet—and so affectionate to me in response… I discovered a strong desire to return love verbally and physically when Ronnie gave it. That's something I never did with man or woman! I was so mixed up! Barb said the difference between me last summer and now was like watching a flower, once tightly shut, start to open up and bloom.

I’ve thanked God for Ronnie and for the love He gave me for Ronnie. And then I turned it over to God to control and, for as long as He keeps this love in me and Ronnie, to make it pleasing to Himself, unselfish, and glorifying to Him. He's been with me step by step down an unfamiliar path. Thank you, Jesus.

Latching on…or daydreaming about impossible things is like going down a blind, dead end alley in one of Algernon's mazes.

I figure God knows what He’s doing, and that I’ve learned to love and be affectionate can’t be a bad thing!