My Earliest Memories With Dyslexia
Life has always puzzled me.
My trouble with learning began in elementary school with my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Walters.
“Henry, look at the board and this time try to follow me, one-plus-one equals two. Okay, it’s your turn, listen carefully, Henry, what does one-plus-one equal?”
I really tried, but for the life of me, I could not see what my teacher was asking me to see. How could one straight line, when added to another straight line, turn into a single crooked line she kept insisting was two?
The more my teacher pushed me to repeat what she insisted was the “right answer,” the more my classmates laughed at her growing frustration and my inability to understand what seemed obvious to everyone else in the class.
At first, my classmates’ laughter didn’t bother me. Why should it? Everyone was having fun, except for Mrs. Walters. She seemed to grow more impatient and upset with me.
Laughing had always felt good to me. Maybe it was because I came from a funny family. My father had been a stand-up comic for years and could make anyone laugh. Especially me. I think this is why the other kids laughing didn’t bother me. I was laughing right along with them.
But honestly, this whole one-plus-one thing was silly.
“Henry,” she’d say, as she grew more impatient with me, “Listen to my words, what does one-plus-one come to?”
“Eleven?” I said with hesitation. This made much more sense since the number eleven had two straight lines rather than a single curved one.
I wish I could say my learning problems improved by the end of my first year of education. Instead, it got a lot worse. In fact, my whole life did.
I was also having trouble telling time. Whether it was the clock’s long hand or short hand, whether it was half-past the hour or a quarter to the next one, none of this made any sense.
Then, after months of trying to understand how to tell time, Mrs. Walters informed us that time was not the same for everyone. She said that our world was divided into time zones.
The idea that time could be different for different people in different countries came as a real shocker to me. I thought time was the same for everyone. Who would have known?
Serious Business – The Bedroom Meeting
Toward the end of my first school year, I learned that Mom and Dad had been called in for a secret meeting with my teacher and school principal. I say it was a secret because I didn’t know anything about it until my parents came into my bedroom soon after the meeting, wanting to have a serious talk.
A serious talk? Being serious was not something my parents did well. And certainly not in my bedroom. Most of our serious talks were either by the refrigerator or around the dinner table.
In fact, some dinner table talks could get extremely serious, even competitive, like when it came to deciding which of the three kids got to eat Mom’s last shrimp. Mom made a terrific shrimp marinara. And nothing delighted her more than to watch her whole family fight over who got to eat the last shrimp.
This bedroom meeting seemed oddly different. Little did I know, this cozy little chat of ours was about to change my life, and not in a good way.
My parents brought in two chairs. I was seated on my bed. It looked like Mom had been crying. She was holding a crumbled-up tissue in her right hand. My father seemed oddly serious as well — since most of the time, Dad held the role of the family joker, always good-humored and bent on making everyone laugh.
Mom went first. “Henry, we spoke with your first-grade teacher. We talked about how you were doing, and well, there seems to be a problem.”
I sensed Mom was about to get emotional. Mom looked at my father for support. So, Dad stepped in with his usual flare for comedic timing. But this time, there was no funny punchline to deliver.
“Henry, we had a long discussion with both your teacher and the principal a few days ago. First, let me say that your teacher, Mrs. Walters, thinks very highly of you.
“Right Deb?” Dad asked.
“Very high,” Mom repeated.
“Mrs. Walters told us you are always polite and well-behaved, but that there was a problem with your schoolwork.”
“What kind of problem? I asked. Was it a bad problem or a good problem?”
Dad continued, “Well, it wasn’t a good problem, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t all bad either.”
My ears perked up a little.
My father paused, and then, bam, he let it fly, “Henry, your school believes you may be mentally retarded.”
Mom belched. She did that when she tensed up. It was her way of releasing nervous air. She then wiped away a few tears with the tissue she had been clutching.
“Restarted? What does that mean?” I asked.
Dad continued, “You know the way your cousin Allan is?
What about Cousin Allan? I asked.
“Well, Cousin Allan is also retarded.
They both froze to see how I would react.
“Also?” I asked.
I didn’t understand what Cousin Allan had to do with my schoolwork. Allan was not only my cousin, but also my best friend and quite the joker like my Dad.
Allan was always trying to make me laugh. And if his jokes didn’t do the job, he would throw me under the covers and tickle me until I laughed or wet my bed. I usually did both.
Alan was also really smart. He knew the names of all the animals at the zoo and could count from one to twenty with his eyes closed – say nothing of his fort-building skills. I couldn’t think of a single thing that Allan couldn’t do.
“Allan’s okay, right?” I asked.
Then Dad said, “Yes, he’s fine.” (Then he paused – here it comes) “Other than the fact Cousin Allan is twenty-seven years old.”
“What?” I started feeling dizzy. “I thought Mom told me Allan was just big for his age.”
“He is big for his age,” Mom said defensively, “but he’s also severely disabled.”
“Severely?” I gasped as if I knew what that even meant.
I only knew about having to be restarted. Like when Dad couldn’t get his car to turn on after it had snowed. Dad got so mad at the car that he hit the steering wheel and yelled really bad words at the car.
But still, what did Dad’s car have to do with Allan?
Mom tried to explain, “Henry, Cousin Allan’s body is much older than his brain…”
“You mean Allan’s brain stopped working, but his body kept growing? Is that what happened? The doctor couldn’t restart Allan’s brain?”
Dad looked stumped at what I asked and turned to Mom. “You know Deb, that’s a good question – what about that? “
She paused to think, “I don’t know,” Mom replied. “I’m sure the doctors tried to restart his brain … but maybe they just couldn’t get it going again.”
Mom continued, “Henry, what we are trying to say is that, for some reason, Allan’s brain stayed young, which is why he plays with you rather than with kids his age. “
Does Alan know he’s restarted? I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mom said.
“Don’t you think somebody should let him know?
I started wondering whether my brain had also stopped working, which was why I was having trouble at school. I also wanted to know if I would have to play with little kids like me when I got bigger.
This was all very confusing, and I started to cry.
Dad tried to calm me down. “Henry, try to relax; it’s not as bad as it seems. Both the teacher and the principal think your condition might be mild.”
“Mild? What do you mean?” I asked.
“It means that your brain might not be like Allan’s, but your school needs you to be tested so they can find out for sure. The principal gave us the names of some brain doctors who specialized in these things.
Deb, what do they call these conditions?” Dad asked.
“Brain disorders, I think,” Mom said.
Will I have to be there? I asked.
Dad shot me a double-take and said, “Do you have to be there? Of course, you have to be there – it’s your brain they’ll be testing. He said in a comedic tone. But look at it this way: when we show up at the hospital, you’ll be the star of the show!”
Mom a little upset, “Richard, do you always have to make a joke out of everything?”
“Mom?” I asked, “Did I catch this from Allan? Did I play with him too much?”
No, darling, it’s not like getting a cold. Doctors seem to think it may be genetic.
“Generic?” I asked.
Mom replied, as if to take credit for it, “Yes, doctors believe the problem is something parents give to their child.”
The Big Gray Building
A few days later, when we arrived at the hospital, everyone in the lobby seemed to know all about me. Dad was right. I did feel like I was the star of the show. When we entered the lobby, a nice lady wearing a white coat was waiting for me.
“So, you are Henry?” she asked. “It’s so nice to meet you.” Then said, “Well, you’re a big boy. How old are you?”
(Looking back, I wish I had told her I was 37 so we could dispense with this whole fiasco and go home.)
Instead, I recoiled and asked, “You’re not going to give me a shot, are you?”
She smiled and reassured me, ‘No, Henry, nothing like that. We will run a few tests and ask you some questions – you have nothing to worry about. Nothing is going to hurt. She reached out her hand to me and asked. “Are you ready to go?
Before I could answer, she took my hand, and off we went toward a long corridor. As we walked, I heard Mom let out a burp. As I glanced back, Mom slowly waved me goodbye.
It looked like she was about to cry – as if I might not be returning.
The Window That Looked In
We went up an elevator and entered a strange room. There, in the middle of the room, was a small table covered with white tissue paper, and near it was a small machine with different dials and colored wires dangling from it.
A few feet away from the table was a large glass window. But instead of facing the outside, the window faced inside the room where I was.
Behind the window were two men who were also dressed in white coats. They seemed busy, and one of them was holding a clipboard.
Then, out of nowhere, I heard a man’s voice pop through a small metal box near me. I think it was the man with the clipboard behind the window.
“Hello, Henry, could you hear me? The man asked.
The voice told me that we were going to play a few games. But first, they would need to place wires on my head and then ask me a few questions.
The lady in white placed a cap on my head and then attached a bunch of wires to it.
The man’s voice clicked through the box again. He asked me to lie down and relax. They turned off the lights. Everything around me went dark except for where the two men were standing. They kept staring at me from their indoor window, which gave me creeps.
“Henry,” the voice popped back up again. “We want you to relax, and when we tell you to think of something, all we want is for you to simply see the image in your mind.
For example, if we ask you to see an elephant playing a flute, think of an elephant playing a flute. Do you understand what we’re asking, Henry?”
An elephant playing a flute? I thought, how is that even possible?
Henry, do you understand what we are asking?
“Yes,” I nodded. Sure enough, they began to ask me to see all these different types of animals doing different things—a horse dancing, a giraffe swimming in the ocean, and a monkey eating a ham sandwich.
I couldn’t help but think about Cousin Allan and how he loved all the different zoo animals. He would have laughed so hard at the idea of a monkey eating a ham sandwich.
The questions sure seemed easier than trying to understand why one-plus-one equaled two, so I felt I had a good chance of doing well on the test. On the other hand, it also occurred to me that Cousin Allan would have done even better than I had.
When the lights came back on, I could see the two men talking behind the window, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I started to worry that maybe I was also losing my hearing.
The Second Bedroom Meeting
About a week later, my parents showed up in my room again. They’d received the test results and had spoken to my teacher and principal about the findings.
My father told me that I’d done well on the brain test and that there was no need to restart me. That was a relief, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
The teacher and the principal had told my parents that I was probably just slow for my age, which I later learned was a nice way of saying they thought I was dumb. They said because of my slowness, they would need to hold me back a grade, which meant I would have to repeat first grade.
My parents assured me that many kids were slow and that it wasn’t bad. Best of all, Dad said, in a relieved tone, he wouldn’t have to pay for me to go to a special school, which he said would have cost him a fortune.
I wasn’t as happy about the news as Dad was. While I didn’t have what Cousin Allan had, I knew that being slow was not going to win me any races.
After all, who wins races by running slowly?
First Grade Again – One Plus One Equals Two
Finally, the day came when my new first-grade teacher asked me what one plus one equals. This time, I was ready and told her what she wanted to hear. I said two.
You would have thought giving her the answer she wanted to hear would have made me happy. But it didn’t. I had no idea why one-plus-one equaled two. I was just saying what my teacher wanted me to say.
Other than being able to say one-plus-one equaled two, on all other fronts, I was clueless. I still had trouble reading, spelling, writing, and doing math. No matter how hard I tried, my progress was slow and minimal.
The Public Education System
Looking back to the mid-1960s, public school educators were oblivious to reading disabilities. Say nothing of what we now know about neural diversity.
If I didn’t have a physical disability, the school was stuck with me and me with them. So, every year, they just kept moving me on to the next grade.
The school’s response to so-called “slow learners” was to divide the students into three categories: slow kids (stupid), average kids (mostly everyone else), and gifted kids (the holy ones).
My school even went as far as to assign color codes to each of the three groups. Each group had their own classroom according to their brain level. In doing so, they ensured that slow kids stayed with slow kids. And in case anyone needed to remember who was smart, average, or slow, the school pasted their class color on the front of their classroom door.
And so began my journey with Dyslexia. A life full of strange struggles and still stranger turning points.
With each passing year, I understood my world from new and different perspectives. I remember one such perspective having made a major impact on me. It was my first time seeing a picture of our planet from deep space.
Undividing The Whole
Edgar Mitchel was one of the few human beings that traveled to the moon and back. On his return trip, Mitchell describes what it was like to see our planet without artificial boundaries. Seeing the Earth in its glorious totality. Mitchel described the experience as if he was witnessing his home for the very first time.
The experience of finally seeing the whole from its parts is what we feel when working on a jigsaw puzzle when that one almost magical piece clicks into place and suddenly reveals the whole image – the moment of manifestation.
There is something almost sacred about looking at the whole of something that previously could only be seen through its parts.
The experience forever changed Mitchel.
It wasn’t a divided world Mitchel saw; it was the whole and complete expression of divine beauty. What Edgar Mitchel saw, he experienced, and from what he experienced, deeply and profoundly changed him.
It’s a sharp reminder that when we go about our lives dividing and separating everything we see into labels, fast or slow, good or bad, smart or dumb, it prevents us from understanding the fuller picture from emerging. When we only see what separates us, we are blind to seeing what connects us.
These shifts in perspective may provide a clue on how many dyslexics perceive the world. Learning through a dyslexic lens always felt like I was searching for the infinite through its parts. Parts that were themselves changing and manifesting into the whole.
This may explain why I could not see why one-plus-one equaled two. I could only see why one-plus-one equaled one.
Early educators seemed to think all children learn in the same way, and those who didn’t couldn’t and were labeled as slow and unintelligent.
Yet, for many dyslexic learners, learning is synonymous with visually experiencing what they are asked to learn.
It didn’t matter if my teacher ordered me to see something I could not see. For me to learn and remember what I learned, I had to visually experience it; if not, it goes unlearned.
Excerpt from Henry’s Puzzle – Awakening to Infinity, 2nd Edition in Progress – release date June 2024 (All Rights Reserved)
