I began to see Christopher’s behavior in a new light. Each individual whose life touched his was important to him and he accepted who they were, without judgment. At the same time, he challenged each one, using his uncanny understanding of incongruity. He seemed to understand that many of the adults he dealt with needed to have their egos taken down a notch or two, and Chris took us all on, singly and together, testing everyone to the limits of endurance, himself included.
In The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck tells us that love is not a feeling, but an action; specifically, it is the process of extending oneself to help the spiritual growth of another. Christopher’s challenges were the sign of his boundless love, and they always matched the unspoken needs of the person being challenged.
There was Carson, a mute, disfigured young man, who spent his days and nights strapped into a football helmet because he was constantly banging his head into walls. With a laugh and with no trace of mockery, Chris described Carson’s room as looking like Swiss cheese, because there were so many holes in the walls. Most people avoided any contact with Carson, but Chris always spoke kindly to him, greeted him every day at least once, shook his hand, making every effort to let Carson know that to Christopher, Carson was a person. Chris never stated this, never looked for credit. It was just his way.
There was Sylvia, whose developmental disabilities were compounded by her total intolerance for frustration or criticism. She cried continually, and Chris never tired of comforting and reassuring her.
I learned a lot about Christopher’s benevolence from Ginger Manise, a teacher’s aide in his school. If the phrase “salt of the earth” describes anyone, it describes Ginger and her husband, Jimmy. I have never met people who radiated straightforward, uncomplicated, unselfconscious good will the way that Ginger and Jimmy did. Chris always rewarded them with his best behavior.
Ginger had been hired to work with Chris one-on-one at the Elizabeth Green School in Newington, Connecticut, when Chris was 12. When I began to write this book, Ginger sent me a letter that included some of her memories. They paint a picture of Christopher that is uniquely Ginger’s. I think it explains why she was such a special person in his life.
I remember my first day at Elizabeth Green School with Chris. His teacher told me to just observe him getting off the bus and not to introduce myself. I felt nervous, not knowing what to expect. The bus pulled up and there was Chris, climbing down the stairs with his skinny little legs. It was warm and he was wearing shorts. He loved going to school, so he just looked straight ahead and ran down the hallway, never stopping till he reached his classroom. There, he would stand in the doorway and announce to the teacher: “Here I am, Miss Dick-man,” and he would proceed to ask her questions about the school day, what the assignments would be, and what was for lunch that day. When he found out that he had a new aide at school, just for him, he was so excited.
Chris knew the disabilities of the other children in the class and was always aware if someone in the class was having a problem. Many times he would go up to Eileen and tell her to stop crying because she would be okay. He was always interested in what Jay, John, or Dorothy were doing. If there was ever a goodwill ambassador in that class, it was Chris. He always put everyone else first. He was so considerate.
I loved the way Chris laughed, and the way he would shout when he was happy. He loved to talk about his family and the fact that he had three brothers. He tried so hard on his papers at school because he knew he would be rewarded with a star and he would smile and yell out with such pride.
When I spent time with Chris outside of school, he loved to hold hands and to be held, which wasn’t allowed at school. The so-called professionals thought they knew what was best for Chris. They tried to make him into something he wasn’t or ever could be. He was a little boy who loved Big Bird, music, and attention.
He could always get attention, usually by being very direct and very polite. It always amazed me the way that shop clerks and waiters would take extra special time to please Chris. One day, Jimmy and I took Chris to A. C. Petersen’s after school. Chris stood in the doorway and beamed out, “Do you have donuts?” Well, they didn’t, but the manager found a donut for him somewhere. On another day, Kathy and I took Chris to Denny’s. It was his birthday and we told the waitress, but, of course, Chris did also. At the end of the meal, when they brought us a cake, not only did all the waitresses come to our table to sing “Happy Birthday,” but customers in the restaurant joined in. Well, Chris thought he was just the most popular person in the world. He talked to everyone there. He was so excited. I just loved to watch him with people. He was so social.
Many people who met Chris didn’t know how to react to him because he would ask questions or say things that they didn’t know how to answer. He was so honest, unlike most of us!
Chris was very impulsive and would rush to do things that got him into trouble and landed him in the “Time Out” room. I taught him to say “Excuse me” before he touched anything in the classroom. This would slow him down and give both of us time to evaluate what was on his mind before he acted. Actually, Chris was very polite anyway and also concerned about other people and their feelings. Some days he would come to school very tired and spaced out and could not do anything well, which was not his fault. Instead of “Time out,” which served no purpose at that point, I suggested that they put a cot in the other room for Chris to lie down. That usually worked. Sometimes I even managed to sit with him when he was on the cot and we would share secrets and laugh. I know that I became overprotective of Chris and I didn’t want him to be in an atmosphere that would hurt him or that he couldn’t handle.
Chris had such an impact on the people whose lives he touched. Jimmy and I are both so proud that we had a part in his short life and that he was a very important part of ours.
What struck me most about Ginger’s experience of Chris was how different it was from the experience of the Elders of the Lifesharing community, also gentle people of good will.
When we met at the funeral home to share stories about Christopher, they openly discussed how difficult living with Chris had been. They had coped with those days when Chris relentlessly refused to cooperate with the plans or schedules set by others, but the nights were a different matter. There had been nights when Chris would steadfastly refuse to honor anyone’s privacy, repeatedly entering the bedrooms of others or banging on the walls or doors from the next room, shrieking. “He really brought me face-to-face with my dark side,” said one, obviously reluctant to describe the anger he had felt. “It was frightening.”
This was an extraordinary statement among a group of people committed to kindness and patience. It was especially extraordinary considering Christopher’s love for the community.
Once, when I asked Chris how he felt about being on the farm, he told me he really liked the people. I asked him what it was that he liked. He replied, thoughtfully, that they were very special. They loved him and wanted him to stay.
I was quite moved by the candor of this community. “There were many occasions when Chris made me see the dark side,” I said quickly. “For some reason, I can’t remember any of them now. They’ve vanished from my brain. I just know that there were times when I felt I would do anything just to make him stop and sit quietly. He really showed me what an angry, irrational person I can be.”
Others echoed those sentiments. Chris had spent a month living at Buena Vista Farm before moving to North Plain. His behavior there had been terrible. Oppositional in the extreme, he was incorrigible in resisting the routines of the household and violating the privacy of the other residents. Chris became much more cooperative after the head of the household injured himself with an ax, severing tendons in his foot. When we visited Buena Vista at the end of the month, he tried hard to be charitable in his descriptions of Chris’s faults.
“He is the most inconsiderate person I have ever met,” he explained. “He has absolutely no regard for the rights of other people.”
By the time of Chris’s death, their relationship had improved. I told the group about Chris’s Spirit seen at the time of his death, and one of the Elders revealed a similar vision he had had some months before. “We were at the beach and Chris stepped out of the trailer. He had that quizzical look on his face which asked, ‘What kind of trouble can I make now?’ Then he turned so that the sun was at his back. I saw something like what you’ve described. His face was shaded, but there was a brightness to it. It seemed transformed. I had the feeling that a very strong, benevolent force was struggling to manifest itself within him. I could almost see it. When he turned again, that look of trouble was gone from his face. He really tried hard during that trip.”
I didn’t know what to make of this experience, but it seemed to me that he and I had different perceptions. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that the benevolent force, the Being of power and joy, was manifesting itself within Chris at all times, even when he was being the most difficult. By being difficult, Chris was teaching us something about ourselves.
It was Chris’s relationship with Luke and Daniel that allowed me to understand the true genius underlying his behavior. This is what I was told about them when I started to write this story. I’ve changed their names to protect their privacy.
Luke was from a small town near the Canadian border. He had a wife and a baby, little education, and few skills. His life had been scarred by feelings of rejection, loss, and failure since childhood. As a teen, he had watched a friend jump to his death from a rooftop after taking LSD. The boy thought he could fly. Luke panicked and was unable to stop him. He blamed himself for his friend’s death and entered a deep depression. Alice, his girlfriend, stayed with him and eventually married him. They drifted south to the Berkshires in search of work.
When Alice started doing housework at North Plain Farm, Luke began hanging around and helping out with chores. The farm became a second home for Luke and he began helping Chris. They were a good team. Chris was always cheerful and full of tricks. Luke was gentle and patient but very persistent in getting Chris to follow through on his tasks. Luke’s influence had changed Christopher’s attitude toward hiking in the woods. One day in October, as they crossed the ridge behind North Plain Farm, Chris had stopped and pointed to the tree-covered peaks of the Berkshires, shimmering orange and red and yellow in the late-morning sun. “Luke,” he said with excitement, “look!” It was the first time that Chris had cared about scenery.
Luke felt that he was worth something to Chris. This may have been the only time in his life that he had felt successful at taking care of someone else. The bond went deeper. In Chris, Luke saw someone his own age who was far more handicapped than he, but who never felt like a failure. Chris’s death was devastating to Luke. He seemed to feel lost without him.
Daniel had moved up from Virginia shortly after the founders of Shadowood, Nina and Scott, moved north to Great Barrington. Theirs was a close and complex friendship. Nina had met Daniel the day she, Scott, and their two young children moved to Virginia. As they prepared to unload their U-Haul trailer in pouring rain, Daniel’s smiling face popped up from behind a table and asked, “Where does this go?”
Daniel was 13 at the time and already considered an odd, quirky individual in the conservative community in which he lived. Like Luke, Daniel seemed to be a loser. He was smart-mouthed and willfully disobedient to all authority. He cut school most of the time and did so poorly in English that he was placed in a class for the learning disabled, which infuriated him, because he was quite adept at math and science and wrote his own very original poetry. Everyone in his family thought he was crazy, unlike his younger brother, who was an outstanding student and athlete. His mother told Daniel that he was mentally handicapped and would never be able to take care of himself. Not to worry, she’d look after him as long as she lived.
Daniel had few friends his own age and seemed awkward and uneasy with other teens. But he loved small children, perhaps because he had so much in common with them. He was a pied piper of sorts in the neighborhood, his pockets always full of candy that he was happy to give away. Nina’s home became his second home and her children his playmates. When her father was hospitalized, and she spent long hours traveling to the hospital in another town, Daniel came over twice a day to cook for the children. He never actually moved in. The freedom to come and go at will meant too much to him. He neither ate nor bathed regularly, and rarely sat through a full meal.
For Nina, there was one story that crystallized the quintessential Daniel:
It snowed. The first snow since her family had moved to town. Daniel was 14 and school was officially closed. He came to Nina’s house to take her son Nicholas, then less than three years old, out to play in the snow.
“I’m sorry, Daniel, Nicholas has a fever,” said Nina. “I can’t let him go out in the snow when he’s sick.”
“What kind of mother are you?” retorted Daniel. “This is the boy’s first snow and you’re gonna make him miss it? C’mon, Nicholas, get your clothes on. We’re goin’ out!”
“You are not taking Nicholas out of this house,” Nina insisted. “His temperature is one hundred and three. You’ll have to leave if you don’t stop.”
At those words, Daniel silently walked outside and began gathering up buckets of snow. He marched them inside the house and dumped snow into the bathtub, filling it above the rim. This took about an hour. He walked Nicholas into the bathroom and with him built a snowman, which was placed in the freezer for safekeeping. He then closed the door and the two boys had a snowball fight with the remaining snow. When it had all melted, Daniel came out, put his boots on and said, “You’re the mother. You clean it up.” And he walked out the door.
Nina saw Daniel almost every day. She read his poetry. She struggled with him to stay in school, but he quit when he turned 16, working at odd jobs that never lasted very long. After Nina brought her family to Great Barrington, Daniel called her every two weeks to say, “I don’t miss you.” Finally he came, lived in the attic at Shadowood, and began to help build the new kitchen at North Plain.
Daniel connected with Christopher, and it was Chris who pulled Daniel into the life of the community. Chris was a challenge to Daniel. Chris demanded interaction; he thrived on a battle of wills. “Make me do it” was his unspoken response to every command. “You may love me or you may hate me,” Chris seemed to say, “but you can never ignore me. No one can be neutral to me!” Daniel, who despised authority, rose to the challenge of getting Chris to cooperate without coercion. Being stubborn and rebellious, he loved Chris’s stubbornness. He never battled with Chris or lost his temper. He teased and cajoled, was playful and funny. Once, when they were assigned a job to do together, Chris persistently refused to do his part. He was tired . . . he wanted to lie down . . . he wanted to do something else . . . he wanted to do the job another way, not the way it was supposed to be done. . . . Every sentence and every gesture signaled opposition, and nothing would bring Chris around.
Finally, Daniel proclaimed, “Chris, I’m gettin’ so frustrated I’m gonna hafta . . . give you a big kiss right on the mouth!” Which is exactly what he did.
Chris squirmed away. “Don’t do that!” he protested with some disgust in his voice. But he started doing his job as fast as he could.
After Chris’s funeral, Daniel lingered by the graveside, looking down at the coffin. He was hurting badly and he didn’t know what to do with the pain. After 15 minutes, maybe more, he removed his wallet from a pocket and took from it a picture of his mother, the only picture of her that he possessed. It was worn from being handled. For Daniel, this photo was like an icon. Whenever he was hurt, confused, in trouble or pain, he would hold it in his hand and study her face. Leaning down, he placed the photo on Christopher’s coffin, then turned and walked away.
I realized that Chris had brought out the best in both Daniel and Luke, by allowing them to help him. They saw they could each make a difference in Chris’s life, and that meant a lot to them.
I marveled at Christopher’s genius, at his ability to instantly sense what every person thought of himself and devise a strategy to show them that the opposite could also be true. That was his path, to teach through opposition, and he traveled it brilliantly.