Jamie is my son. He is 22 years old. He is a bright, gregarious, effervescent
young man with an amazing cataloguing memory and an insatiable intellectual
curiosity about the world — its people, its creatures, its nations, its
languages and (perhaps most of all) its culinary traditions. If it were possible
for him to travel everywhere on the inhabited globe, he would do it, and he
would try to ingratiate himself with his hosts, just as he does when he greets
the owner of our local Indian restaurant by bowing, hands clasped, and saying
"namaskar." (The owner, Sohan, is delighted by this.) Since graduation, he has
been looking for work. Jamie also has Down syndrome.
By the end of the year, though, Jamie had lowered his sights from "marine
biologist" to "marine biologist helper." And by the end of eighth grade, when we
met with all his teachers and aides and paraprofessionals to go over the
Individualized Education Program that would chart his way through high school
(good news: the high school French teacher agreed to have him in French 1 for
two years and French 2 for two years!), when he was asked what he might do for a
living when he graduated, he said dejectedly, "Groceries, I guess."
I'm not sure what I would have felt that day if I had known that he would
have to settle for less than that.
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