Full Circle, Full Heart

My baby brother’s special-needs school gave all of us an education

- Kathy Warnes, Ashtabula, Ohio

HAPPY HEARTS, a history.

When I read that the school that had meant so much to my family was closing, I wanted to do something to make sure it would be remembered —to write the story of the school and its students over the years. But sitting down to work on it, I didn’t know where to begin. I had the school’s blessing to write about it, but no one had asked me to. I wasn’t being paid. I just want­ ed to do it as a labor of love.

There wasn’t much I wanted to do these days. Not since the accidental death of my daughter, Jill. I didn’t real­ ly care about anything until I saw the news concerning Happy Hearts. Once again, Happy Hearts does the impossible, I thought as I started to type.

“Happy Hearts School was founded in 1954,” I wrote, “by local parents of children with disabilities.…”

It was eight years after that found­ing that my little brother, Kim, be­ came a student. Kim was born with health problems. He had developed ­ mental disabilities because of a lack of oxygen at birth. In those days the families of children like Kim were en­ couraged to abandon any hope of their having a full life. A life of pur­ pose, in which they felt valued and important. My mother was deterred ­ mined that Kim would have more. She saw the longing in his face as he watched us older kids go off to ele­mentary school, act in school plays, make artwork for the fridge, play on school sports teams. When Kim was old enough, she enrolled him in school with the rest of us.

But with no special ed program at the elementary level, Kim didn’t have the support he needed. He couldn’t sit still and concentrate. He was loud. Learned more slowly. Teachers saw him as a distraction to his classmates.