Oh, the grace of old family pictures—the stories and the questions they present. It was with great joy that recently, in my mother’s old pictures, I discovered several photos of my Uncle John.
He wore braces on his legs and got around with a walker, and yet, he taught me how to win a race.
John Mahlon Porter was born in 1923. Crippled, due to cerebral palsy, and mentally handicapped, he managed to attend school until the 4th grade. At that time, the teacher told my grandma that there wasn’t anything more they could do for him there. So, he went home to learn the basics of life from a loving mother, father, and siblings.
Years later, after he came to live with us, he attended another school—the “center,” as we knew it, a school for mentally disabled adults. My mother (his little sister) would go to the parent-teacher conferences. There she was told that he was so well-behaved, compared to others his age.
The staff explained that those like him,
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