Cynthia Rylant, Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
I was more nervous than usual.
I was visiting a relatively small school called Catholic High in a relatively small town in Louisiana called New Iberia.
I’d been invited to deliver a message of setting big goals, connecting with a higher calling, being bold in faith, and radically accepting of others. But there was a surprise planned for the end of my speech that I was even more excited about.
The gymnasium was packed with hundreds of students. From fourth-grade students on my right, all the way around to seniors on my left, the bleachers were filled. Seated in foldout chairs on the floor were administrators, parents, and guests from the community.
I shared my story of getting burned as a kid, and spoke of all the individuals who stepped forward to make a difference for me. Then I displayed a picture of what I looked like before I returned to elementary school on the screen behind me. White bandages covered an area on my scalp that had just been used for the thirteenth time as a skin graft donor site. I was seated in a wheelchair. My hands rested on my lap, revealing the effects of the amputation of my fingers.
I then asked the students gathered around me: “Now, if you looked like that, would you be nervous about going back to school?”
The loud rumble throughout the auditorium confirmed that yes, they would be.
“Why?” I asked.
One of the children in the first row frantically waved her hand. (It’s always the youngest who raise their hands first!) After I called on her, she offered, “Because you look so different. Maybe you worried the older kids were going to make fun of you.”
“That’s an awesome answer, and you’re exactly right! That’s exactly what I had been afraid of.”
I then shared the story of what had actually happened when I returned to my school, after being absent for fourteen months.
I left school on a Friday afternoon in January, an athletic, popular fourth-grade boy. I was returning more than a year later, on a March morning, as a fifth grader. I’d missed a lot. But more than that, I was returning in a wheelchair, without my fingers, scarred, scared, and unsure of what school would be like. Would I still have any friends? Would I be able to get from class to class? How would I get my books from my backpack to my locker? Would the teachers treat me differently?
Deep down, I was worried: Would I still belong?
After an early-morning physical therapy appointment, Mom drove me in our old Mercury station wagon. Leaning back against the red vinyl seat, I sat quietly next to her, terrified about the day ahead of me.
I’d never been wild about going to school. Even before being burned, I had welcomed any excuse to miss school and stay home.
Snow day? Check.
Water-main break at school? Check.
National or religious holiday? Check.
Illness? Check.
Potential illness? Check!
On that March day, I took a deep breath. The school was around the corner. Could I come up with an excuse to postpone my return?
But it was too late. She’d made the turn, and school was within sight.
But then I heard shouts and screams, and I looked up.
Hundreds of students lined both sides of the streets.
Mom slowed down the station wagon, and we crawled toward the school. As we did, kids on both sides of the road were shouting welcomes, waving signs, smiling excitedly at me. They were trying to make the little boy who felt he didn’t belong, who was sure he was a piece that just didn’t fit, feel welcomed back. Feel that he belonged, and that he fit perfectly.
As we rolled into the parking lot and Mom stopped the car, the cheering got louder. Mom got out, opened my door, and helped me out. Being a cool fifth grader, I’m not sure I even looked up or waved to acknowledge the cheers. But I heard them. I was profoundly moved by them. I will never forget them, as long as I live.
As our principal propped open the door into the school, I saw that my classmates lined both sides of the hallway. These were kids I’d spent five years getting to know, many of whom I hadn’t seen in more than a year.
As I rolled through the welcoming tunnel that they’d formed, tears sprung from my eyes—tears of happiness. I felt embraced, enveloped by love.
Maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be okay.
The welcome didn’t end with that carefully orchestrated morning. It lasted all year as I carefully navigated my new reality. My classmates didn’t look away. They didn’t avoid me. The other kids didn’t mock me; they engaged with me. They said hello. They helped me with my books. They fought over who got to push my wheelchair.
I was burned, scarred, broken, and different.
But I was back.
And they let me know it was okay. That I still fit.
Sawabona.
This is the traditional greeting for tribes in northern Natal in South Africa. Anytime they see a friend, family member, visitor, or stranger, they welcome that person with the word sawabona.
The friend, family member, visitor, or stranger then replies with sikhona.
Sawabona translates as “I see you.”
And sikhona means “I’m here.”
I love that greeting. To me, that is the heart of connection. Looking at each other fully. Not turning away. Not ignoring or judging. Not holding back or hiding.
I see you.
I’m here.
With those words, you immediately feel embraced, welcomed, accepted. What a difference such a greeting might make for us all.
On that first day as a fifth grader, when I was wildly apprehensive about going back to school, those kids, their waves, their smiles, their handheld posters, their encouragement, let me know that I was seen. That they were here for me.
It was a beautiful gift. And I hoped to give it to someone else today.
As I finished my story in that school in New Iberia, I asked the students gathered around me to imagine how that kind of welcome on my first day back at school had made me feel.
The words good, great, awesome, and loved echoed out from the bleachers.
“So,” I continued, “how would you like the chance to make someone else feel that welcome?”
The crowd roared excitedly.
“Let me tell you a story,” I said. “About a year ago, I met a second-grade boy in the hospital. He was in a terrible car accident and had to be airlifted far away from home, all the way to a hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. The boy’s family was told that he wasn’t expected to live. And that if he did survive, he would never be able to see, or speak, again. He’d certainly never return to school.”
I paused.
“Well, that young man defied those dire prognoses.”
The crowd cheered.
“Eventually he returned to his elementary school. He is now in third grade. And this brave young man is considering attending school here next year.”
There was another roar of excitement.
“He wanted to visit today to see if he might fit in.”
The room buzzed with energy.
“In a moment, I’m going to ask him to stand,” I said, “but I want you to make sure he knows that you see him, that he fits in here, and that he belongs in this community.”
With that I said, “Curtis, would you stand and wave to your future classmates?”
A blond boy with dark-rimmed glasses stood up from a chair on the gymnasium floor. He looked down briefly before looking up and waving sheepishly to the six hundred kids lining the bleachers.
As he did, those students leapt from their seats, shouting encouragement and offering a prolonged standing ovation of welcome. As the applause rained down, Curtis made his way to me, and he gave me a hug and a fist bump.
After the two-minute ovation finally quieted down, he gave me something his parents had never thought they’d see in that ICU more than a year earlier: an enormous smile.
Curtis was home.
My friend, you belong here. You are worthy. You are enough. And we celebrate you.
Your assignment is to remind those you encounter of that same truth in their lives.
We belong.
We are each an essential piece of the puzzle.
Let’s remember how beautiful it is to do life together. No, we don’t all look the same. We don’t all vote the same way. We don’t all worship at the same church or mosque or synagogue. We don’t even always get along.
But we belong.
Let’s stop putting up walls and building fences. Instead, let’s take them down. Let’s put aside our masks. Let’s open up our lives, not only by how we accept others, but by embracing who we are.
Let’s remove the bondage of isolation and lift the veil of perceived unworthiness.
I believe it will empower us to do great things—together.