Carrying Mason (10 page)

“I have a question, Ruby Day,” I said between bites. “I’ve been meaning to ask you but keep forgetting. How come you named your son Mason, if that was the name of that terrible hospital?”

Ruby Day swallowed. She smiled for a minute like
she was remembering something, or trying to recall something important.

“I remember,” she said. She swallowed another bite of yams. “The sign in the picture gave me the idea, Luna.”

Mama put her fork on her plate. “I think I understand. Ruby Day, did you decide to name him Mason after the hospital because it was a way to make a bad place good?”

Ruby Day smiled so wide the yams squeezed through her teeth.

“How’d you get so smart, Mama?” I asked.

“She married me,” Daddy said.

“You can’t take all the credit, Justus.”

Jasper raised his milk glass. “I miss Mason.”

“He’s here,” Ruby Day said. She pushed her chair back, stood up, and dashed out the front door.

“Where’s she going?” Delores asked. “Shouldn’t someone go after her?”

“Give her a minute,” Mama said.

But I wasn’t so sure if I should wait or run after her.

I pushed my chair back. Daddy grabbed my hand. “Wait, Luna Fish.”

April looked at me and smiled. “Do you think that cranky lady found the snake I put in her car?”

Daddy laughed so hard he nearly choked. Mama shook her head. “April, you didn’t.”

Ruby Day dashed back into the house carrying Mason’s picture right before April could confess.

“Where should I put it?” she asked.

Mama made a space on the crowded table between the mashed potatoes and the peas. “Right here, Ruby Day. Put Mason’s picture right here.”

“Is it all right to put a picture on the table?” Ruby Day asked.

“Ain’t no rule,” I said.

Daddy flipped on the hi-fi, and the notes of “Autumn Leaves” swirled and danced into the dining room.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed reading about Luna and her family. Luna was very brave to move in with Ruby Day after Mason died. She was also smart and truly showed what it means to consider someone else more highly than herself. She was brave to stand up to Aunt Sapphire. Sadly, many years ago, people with developmental delays like Ruby Day were often sent to live in institutions far away from their families and the “normal” public. That was what Aunt Sapphire wanted for Ruby Day.

Sometimes residents were taught their colors or how to read, but most of the time, society considered people with educational disabilities a burden. People with mental disabilities were not educated or taught a trade so they would be able to live on their own or become active, productive members of society. Often the residents of these professional institutions were forced to take care of the buildings, to clean the bathrooms and scrub the floors. Sometimes they were tranquilized so they could be kept under control. People like Ruby Day were called “morons,” “idiots,” “imbeciles,” “retards,” or, as in Ruby Day’s case, “feebleminded”—these are terrible words that only harm God’s precious children.

I got the idea to write this story after watching a documentary about the history of mental retardation and seeing the vivid and sometimes terrifying images of people in these institutions. Sometimes the
institutions were called “homes.” It broke my heart to see how human beings could be so misunderstood. I don’t think the people in charge of these homes were mean-spirited or nasty. They just didn’t know as much about educational delays as we know today. By the mid-1970s most of these institutions were closed, and the resident students were moved into the general community.

I wanted to write about someone who overcame all these obstacles. Ruby Day had a job she enjoyed, hobbies—like her garden—and she lived a productive, happy life with friends and family who loved her. Fortunately, children with developmental delays today usually stay with their families. My friend Christa has a daughter with Down’s syndrome. Her name is Sarah. After she graduated from high school, Sarah went to live in a community with other adults just like her. Sarah has a job and an active social life. Her mom told me that sometimes she calls Sarah and Sarah doesn’t even have time to talk to her. She’s too busy working or talking with her friends.

Sometimes special-needs children go to different schools. If you look in the front of this book, you’ll see that it is dedicated to my young friend Anna Halter. Anna has autism and is considered severely mentally disabled. She lives with her mom and dad and sister, but she goes to a school specially designed to work with students with disabilities. At Anna’s school, she
receives physical therapy to help improve the way her body moves. With help, Anna rides horses and learns to brush her teeth, set the table, and make her bed. She is also learning how to pay for things she might want to purchase. Anna goes home every day. She has not been shut away. She is being given opportunities to learn and grow to her potential. While I was writing
Carrying Mason,
Anna turned twenty, but she functions as an eighteen-month-old child. Anna will never be able to take care of herself or live in a community like Sarah, but she is home with her family where she is happiest.

At your school, you may have noticed some students get more help with their class work or might get called out from time to time to work with a special teacher. But that doesn’t make him or her strange or unlikable. And that’s a good thing. When we meet someone with an intellectual disability, we should see the person first, before the disability.

Blessings,
Joyce Magnin

JOYCE MAGNIN
loves stories, video games, cream soda, and Parcheesi, but not laundry or elevators. She is a frequent conference speaker, the mother of three amazing children, and has three grandsons and a parakeet who thinks she’s a chicken. Joyce lives in Pennsylvania.

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ZONDERKIDZ

Carrying Mason
Copyright © 2011 by Zonderkidz
Illustration: © 2011 by Gabhor Utomo

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

EPub Edition © JULY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-310-72683-8

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moccero, Joyce Magnin.

Carrying Mason / Joyce Magnin.

    p. cm.

Summary: In rural Pennsylvania in 1958, when thirteen-year-old Luna’s best friend Mason dies, she decides to move in with his mentally disabled mother and care for her as Mason did.

ISBN 978-0-310-72681-4 (hardcover)

1. Conduct of life — Fiction. 2. People with mental disabilities — Fiction. 3. Country life — Pennsylvania — Fiction. 4. Family life — Pennsylvania — Fiction. 5. Pennsylvania — History — 20th century — Fiction. I. Title.
PZ7.M71277Car 2011
[Fic]—dc23

2011014462

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible,
King James Version, KJV.

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Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.

Art direction: Kristine Nelson
Cover illustration: Amy June Bates

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