Narrative Part 1

 My Best Friend Grace

My alarm clock sounded at 6 AM on a Monday morning, I slowly rolled out of bed preparing myself for another dreaded day of high school. I continued my usual routine of enjoying a cup of Joe, selecting my outfit, brushing my teeth, and heading out the door. Arriving by 7:10 AM I parked my car and sluggishly walked into the building, making my way to the corner of the second floor, my favorite area on campus. As I rounded the corner my day instantly improved as I found myself standing in front of the Special Education classroom and sitting on the floor outside the door waiting for their instructor to arrive were my favorite people in the entire student body, my Buddies.

I refer to the Buddies as the students with cognitive disabilities who participate in the club Best Buddies, however my biased favorite is Grace, my specific pairing within the organization. Grace is one year below me and diagnosed with Autism, besides the physical traits that others use to her define her, I tend to focus on her inner characteristics which led me to call her my best friend. It is often found, especially in a high school setting, that students with mental disabilities are teased and picked on because of their involuntarily differences. Like Grace and the other students generalized as Buddies in my school, they must struggle with not only the academic hurdles of school, but the crueler social aspect of high school. It is widely known that those with disabilities are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to high school cliques and are rarely given the chance to be included, if at all. However, this is where Grace differs among the rest of her peers, she is a spunky, opinionated, spirited little girl who wouldn’t be suspected as being diagnosed by the sound of it. Grace is my drive every time I roll out of bed at 6 AM and makes coming to school just a little more durable.

As I conversed with Grace about her weekend activities filled with horseback riding lessons, restaurants visited with her family, and a new puppy they just adopted, I raced off to my first lesson barely making it into my seat before the late bell rang. Four hours of lectures, and two class periods dragged on before I got to go down to the cafeteria to enjoy my well-deserved lunch; I took my usual seat at a table in the corner of the cafeteria surrounded by all my friends, and of course Grace. My forty-five-minute lunch period was spent listening to the entertaining stories by Grace about her “silly” classmates, a cute boy she spotted in the hall, and complaints about what her mom packed for lunch.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the opportunity to sit with Grace every day due to our conflicting class schedules, however, the days I can’t keep her company worry me immensely. Every once and a while when I offer to do an errand for one of my teachers I sneak down to the cafeteria and visit Grace, sitting alone hidden on the side staircase. She has no phone or computer to keep her busy, no music to listen to, and no one to talk to; I frequently encourage her to venture out and try to make new friends, but it sadly often results in her being given a strange stare or a mean comment. As hurtful as it sounds and as immoral it may be, it is too often a normality within the halls of high school that those with disabilities face. As much as I would like to coddle Grace and hold her hand through this all, I don’t always have such availability.

As the latter half of the day continues I meet up with Grace after school at 2:20 PM and makes sure she gets to her cheerleading practice, as a new addition to the team she is dedicated and refuses to even be a minute late as she scrambles to put on her practice uniform and shoes. After I drop her off, I head to my volleyball practice in the gym next door; after practice at 4:30 PM I grab my bag and keys and walk next door to pick up Grace from cheerleading. We both walk back to my car, as I have the responsibility of dropping Grace back off at home since she lives in the neighborhood next to mine and her parents work relatively late. On the twenty-minute drive home I get to hear stories of a new dance move she learned and of course a comment about a cute boy on the basketball team she saw pass by. I got no questions asked about how my day had gone, but I never minded since her stories were almost always more entertaining. Upon dropping Grace off at her house, I returned to my own home at 5:20 PM to start my homework and converse with my family, concluding the end of my day.

Although Grace was branded as another kid with Autism to the rest of the student body in my high school, I never saw her in that light. To me, she was more normal and genuine than any other ignorant, overconfident, judgmental student in that building; Grace never had one bad thing to say about anyone unless it was in response to something said about her. Grace was never in a bad mood, not counting the occasional times I would catch her sobbing on the side stairs because no one would invite her to sit at their table, or because she tried to flirt with a new-found boy but got ignored.

Meeting Grace allowed me to see life through a different set of eyes, although she may have a cognitive difference which many shy away from or underestimate, I see her disability as rather an ability. 

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