Abel's Best Day EVER
Hi. I’m Emma. My mom snapped this picture of my brothers and me on our way down the road to home after our first day of school a few years ago. This was my brother Abel’s best day EVER. And it changed my life forever, too. I’m starting college next year to become a teacher because of Abel’s best day EVER. Let me back up and explain.
My brothers are twins, Abel and Gabe. They’re identical twins, you can’t really tell that from the photo my mom took that day, though. Abe and Gabe can’t be much more different as people, though. They’re best friends and I think it’s because they’re complimentary instead of the same. Gabe is outgoing and plays sports and has lots of girls with crushes on him. On the day mom caught this photo Gabe actually met the girl he is still dating today! Well, Abel used to be more shy. Quiet and struggling, he often spent hours inside on his homework while Gabe and I were out exploring. I used to try to help Abel. Our dad actually punished him a lot when they were little because he thought for sure twins would have the same abilities and he thought Abel was just lazy or daydreaming instead of working on his homework.
On Abel’s best day EVER a new teacher had just started at our school; Mr. Cline. He was young, we were his first posting. He and his wife moved to our town so that he could take the job so on his first day we all sort of knew he was “the new teacher with the pretty art teacher wife” but that was all we knew. Gabe was in Mrs. Blade’s class and Abel got the lucky draw and got Mr. Cline. Well… on the very first day Mr. Cline asked Abel if he had ever had trouble with his English homework or if it was only his Math. Just like that. And Abel said it was only numbers that really confounded him, whether it was Math or perspective drawings like he was doing in Art class. And just like that Mr. Cline suggested Abel take a special test with the School Nurse that afternoon! And just like that we found out that Abel, identical in a lot of ways to Gabe but not in all of them, suffers from a special kind of dyslexia called dyscalculia. It makes it so that his brain just doesn’t understand things that some of us can see just looking.
The school nurse and Mr. Cline and the student representative asked mom to come and get us and they had a meeting with her that same day and asked permission to have Abel take more tests to confirm what they found. All the way home mom was smiling and humming and so happy that she made us stop at the top of the road and she got pictures of us then loaded us back in the car to finish the drive home. She and dad had a hush hush talk in their bedroom and I heard dad arguing but mom just kept sounding happy and excited and so I think he caved in. I think the tests were expensive, or more than he wanted to pay for a kid who could do just fine if he’d just pay attention in school. Anyways, mom stuck to it and Abel took the tests that Friday, he and mom stayed overnight in Sioux City and drove back on Saturday morning. He got to eat at iHop and he said the tests were actually just a lot of talking to different nice people and drawing and eating sweets and having juice! I know NOW that there was a lot going on, and that was all he took away from his day in Sioux City.
In two weeks we all learned how to help Abel, and no one was more on board with it than Mr. Cline. Every step of the way he was there for my brother and gave him his time after school and then later, after his first straight A school year EVER, Mr. Cline would meet with Abel after school and on lunches when he wasn’t in Mr. Cline's class anymore. It turns out Mr. Cline also has dyscalculia and had a special teacher at his own school who helped him figure out how to learn and what special tools to use.
My dad was so amazed by the difference in Abel that he apologized! My DAD! APOLOGIZED! It probably hurt him a little bit to have to do it because he stayed quiet all night afterwards. Abel came out looking shocked and told me and Gabe who were waiting on the swings in our back yard because dad called him in and we were afraid he was in trouble for something. We were all impressed by Abel! Our dad actually admitted he had been wrong, out loud, to one of us! And it was to Abel! I’ll tell you, our dad has never apologized to me or Gabe. Not yet, anyway.
On this day a few years ago my little brother Abel had the best day EVER because he found out he was different and that there was nothing wrong with him. A nice man from Colorado who moved here to Iowa helped Abel and our family see that his difference gave him a special view of the world and he gave my sad, shy brother a whole new outlook on life. The change was so complete. Both of my brothers play sports now. And they compete for the best marks on their report cards. They spend time together outside and doing homework side by side. That huge difference between them is now just another fun thing that balances them and they work together on their homework because sometimes Abel sees things in a way that Gabe just doesn’t and sometimes it’s Gabe who can see a thing that confuses Abel.
I don’t think I knew it when mom snapped this picture, I didn’t really even know what was going on. It had just been an awesome day and mom was humming and Abel was smiling and happy and I had just had a really excellent day at school. It would be over the next few months that I would learn a lot from Mr. Cline about how cool it is to teach and learn with your students and that you can also be a brave hero for kids whose dads think they’re lazy or just daydreaming and who feel lost and confused and can’t explain why. I want to watch for kids like Abel who need a little extra hand up because I have seen how it changed his life.
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