Lesson learned

Clara's school put on a fundraiser a week ago. It reminded me of the "Walk-A-Thon" I did when I was in elementary school, except hers was called the "Fundrun." The premise is the same: get people to pledge money for each lap you run/walk.

I bet you know where this is going.

Since Clara is not a big runner, I asked her how many laps she thought she'd run (fifteen laps is a mile). She told me she'd do six laps, and I thought that was a reasonable goal, so we pledged three dollars a lap. (Quite honestly, I imagined her petering out after the first one. I even talked with the physical therapist at the school to see if she could walk with Clara because I was afraid she would refuse to participate at all without someone next to her.)

The parents were encouraged to come and cheer their kids on, so I dutifully arrived at the school, only to discover that they had moved the run inside the gym because of inclement weather. Picture a child with autism in a loud, echoing, gymnasium filled with one hundred first graders yelling their enthusiasm, a dude in a red cape ("Mr. Awesome" was his name), and pounding, pumping music. I watched Clara at the back, covering her ears. I was impressed that she was managing her discomfort--she didn't remove herself from the situation, but instead stayed and handled it.

The countdown is done and the kids start running. They circle around and around the gym, running through a red inflatable tunnel, and then stopping to get their t-shirts marked off for each lap. She keeps going. And going. And going. She walks sometimes, but she doesn't quit.

Lap 13 or so was a "parent lap," and you can bet I made sure that we took our sweet time getting her t-shirt marked off, letting her give a high-five to Mr. Awesome, etc. Nice and slow.

At lap 18, another teacher (who was trying to be helpful but wasn't at all) freaked her out by grabbing her wrist to direct her somewhere. She started crying, and we walked off the track to take a breather. After getting a drink at the water fountain and resting, she was done.

Eighteen laps. Sure, most of the kids did the maximum (36 laps), but the fact that she did so many was, well, awesome. Her PE teacher, Mrs. Trick, was amazed. Another teacher told me that Clara had stopped to help someone who had fallen which almost made me cry.

Clara was so proud of that t-shirt with the eighteen marks on the back. And even though I had to laugh at my naivete, fifty-one dollars was totally worth seeing my child run her heart out and feel proud of her effort.


Next time, though, I'm sticking with a flat donation.