“Wait...Can everyone push together?” Robert backed up a little farther.
The kids quickly responded by getting out of their desks and gathering into the centre of the room.
“No...not yet, I don’t have everyone...” Robert backed up farther and three feet behind him was a rickety looking, three-legged easel filled with math equations.
“Wait!” Robert stopped. “I almost have everybody. Could you all just snuggle in a little closer?” Robert backed up a little farther and he could sense that the kids in the class were noticing him backing up into the easel. Although they were posing, their mouths started to open and their hands lifted as he backed up. And then, just as Robert was about to back into the easel, most of the class jumped up and screamed, “No, watch it! You are going to...”
Robert quickly turned to all of them and yelled, “FREEZE!”
The kids were so shocked that they all froze with their warning hands reaching out. Robert then snapped the picture.
“And that’s why everyone’s hands were reaching out. They were trying to warn me because I almost backed up off the mountain while trying to take that picture!”
The kids all melted into laughter at finding themselves frozen in the very same poses as the people in the picture on top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
“Robert Sanchez has climbed some of the biggest mountains on Earth and next year he is going to climb the biggest mountain in the world. Who knows what that is?” Virginia asked. All the hands in the class flew up, except Manny Moulder’s.
Virginia motioned for the class to put their hands down and then looked directly at Manny. “Well, Manny, it seems everyone knows the answer but you. Everyone want to help Manny out? The biggest mountain in the world, is...?”
Everyone looked at Manny to see if he would get it first. They looked at him with disbelief that he wasn’t answering what seemed so obvious to the rest of them. Some kids were slowly mouthing and whispering the answer to him. “Ev...er...est!”
That’s when Thelma just exploded with, “Everest, Manny, the biggest mountain in the world is Everest!”
Most of the kids chimed in that, yes, Everest was the biggest mountain in the world.
But Manny stood up and just shook his head and then said in a very polite quiet voice, “No, I don’t think it is.”
The rest of the class all chimed in, reassuring Manny that, yes, of course it is, everyone knows that!
Robert was just about to add in something similar, reaffirming that, yes, Everest is the biggest mountain, but somehow Manny’s elegance of not bending or following the overwhelming opinion of the class made him question himself. He must really believe he belongs if he can stand his ground when every single one of us disagrees with him, Robert thought. But, sadly, he had to tell Manny he was wrong. So he repeated Virginia’s question.
“Manny, I’m sorry to inform you but, the biggest mountain in the world is...”
And then, Robert suddenly stopped himself. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “Manny’s right, it’s not Everest!”
Together, the class gasped a huge “What?”
“Well, your teacher didn’t ask what was the highest mountain in the world was. She asked what was the biggest and Manny’s right, Everest isn’t the biggest; Everest is the highest. The biggest mountain in the world is Mauna Loa. It’s in Hawaii and it’s the biggest because if you lifted Mauna Loa up from the earth and you lifted Everest, Mauna Loa would be bigger in size. Good work, Manny, not only for answering a very tricky question but for standing up for what you thought was right even though every single one of us thought you were wrong!”
Manny then held up his flag and proudly waved it.
BE...how could two letters describe something so profoundly huge? Virginia made it seem so simple. Man, what confidence that kid had! It was un-BE-lievable! Here he was, three times the size of any other child his age; he could have been a target for such ridicule, yet Virginia found a way to make him and all his class believe and feel he belonged and so he behaved as such...
29. 4 WEEKS AGO – SEEMA’S OFFICE
“It’s all right, Benny, leave Robert here.” Seema quickly unwrapped the blue scarf from her hand and neatly placed it on her head.
“Thanks, sorry about not calling first. I hope I didn’t interrupt your conversation,” Benny said as he walked towards the door.
“That’s fine. Mrs. Sanchez was just getting ready to leave.” Seema then gave a little wave to Benny as he closed the door behind him.
Robert did as he always had done and wheeled himself to the window.
“I just told your wife how you do that every time you come into my office,” Seema said as she walked around the other side of her desk to sit down.
It was a grey day and too early for recess, so the yard was empty except for what looked to be a school janitor carrying a green garbage bag. He had a pole in one hand and was stabbing it down to pick up odds and ends, mostly paper, that had blown and gathered in the corner of the play yard.
“And how are you today?” Seema asked as she opened a folder.
“What was my wife here for?”
“Oh, I just asked her to stop in, so we could touch base.”
“What base needed touching?”
Seema shook her head and smiled at Robert’s question. “Well, Robert, I wanted to see how she was doing.”
Robert looked back over his shoulder to Seema. “And that concerns you, how?”
“Well, Robert, you are my concern, and since she is...”
Robert cut her off. “Yeah, okay, I got it...Sorry I asked.”
“Robert, why did you want to see me this morning?”
“Well, it’s just...” Robert stopped. “No, let me ask you a question.”
“All right, sure, ask away.”
“How long have I been seeing you?”
“Well Robert, I don’t have the exact date. Would you like me to check?”
“No. Please don’t! We both know it’s been over three months, right?”
“Okay. Three months. That sounds right.”
“And what’s changed, Miss Pourshadi?”
“I’m sorry Robert, what do you mean what’s changed?”
“Is it working? This? Is this working?”
“Well, I think that’s something I should ask you.”
“Damn! Can you ever just answer a question?”
“But Robert, I’m not here for me...I’m here for you. What’s the use of me telling you if I think it’s working and you don’t think it is?”
Robert let out a loud sigh. “Ahhh! Look, I just can’t do this anymore, all right?!” He grabbed the wheels of his chair and charged towards the exit.
“No, wait! Please Robert, wait! Please?” Seema almost begged.
He stopped a couple of feet near the doorway, but didn’t turn around.
“Just tell me what you can’t do anymore, Robert. Please? Is it me that you—”
“It’s me! Me!” Robert started to turn towards Seema but stopped halfway. “I tried. I did! Maybe you can’t see it...but I tried. It’s just...It’s just, I don’t want to be this anymore...I’m just so...tired of feeling this...You know? This way! I’m just sick and tired of waking everyday feeling like...like this!”
Seema walked over to Robert. She almost touched his shoulder, but stopped herself. “Robert, I know it’s hard to hear this but I think maybe that’s probably a good thing.”
“A good thing? How the hell could feeling like this be good?”
“Because now maybe you know how you don’t want to feel...Maybe you can change that.”
“How?...How?...How?” With each ‘how,’ Robert’s voice lost strength until the last ‘how’ was only mouthed.
“We all need something to help us move from a place we might be stuck in—like a catalyst. It could be something or someone that helps us out of that dark place—to help us find some light. It doesn’t take much. Sometimes all we need is a little tiny light far off in the dark
somewhere.”
Robert slowly turned to face Seema. “Yeah, and where is that something or someone with my light?”
Seema smiled to herself. She was finding it hard to suppress the joy she felt at hearing Robert finally opening up. She quickly reached over and took the chair Monique had just been sitting in. She pulled it beside Robert and sat down.
“When I was a little girl, my mother had some kind of nervous breakdown. She couldn’t do anything. She just stayed in her room for days. She closed the blinds. She didn’t want any light at all. My father tried everything he could, but she wouldn’t come out. Then, one day, my grandmother came over. Anyway, she had these books for my mother to read. And slowly, day by day, my mother got better. Well, we kept bugging our grandmother, we wanted to know what those magical books were, but Grandma would never tell us. She would just say, ‘It’s private; they are your mother’s books!’”
Robert looked directly at Seema. “So what were they...these books? Did you ever find out?”
“Well, of course, being kids, we soon forgot about the books and stopped asking about them. But when I first started working and had this really difficult case, it was my mother who helped me. She reminded me of those books. And do you know what they were? The books were her diaries. She had forgotten about them and they were still at her mother’s house. That’s what my grandmother gave her. And she told me it really helped her. She found that reading about all the thoughts, the hopes and dreams she once had gave her that light. Even reading about all the simple daily boring things helped her. She said it helped to just—well, to see herself again.”
Robert put his head in his hands and rubbed his face roughly.
“So Robert, I just wondered...Have you ever kept any diaries or journals—any kind of past writings?”
Robert didn’t answer; his head was still lost in his hands.
“‘Cause maybe you wrote something...You know, things to yourself. Things that you may not think would be relevant but sometimes, these things we write...Well, some of our past thoughts or insights can be the very thing that gives us a perspecti—”
“Well, sorry, I didn’t. I don’t have anything like that. I’m sorry...Look, I’m sorry but I need some air. Goodbye, Miss Pourshadi.” Robert swirled around and was out the door before Seema could say another word.
30. PRESENT DAY – AT THE HOTEL
Down the hall of the hotel in a brightly neon lit washroom, Monique Sanchez was emptying her stomach into the toilet, trying to expel every sorrow that had filled her life in the last six months since Robert’s accident.
How could I have said that, her conscience echoed, told him he was dead? Dead! Oh my God! She threw up again.
She gagged six or seven more times, trying to force all her pain into that toilet. But other than the tears that trickled down her face, nothing more came. She yanked off some toilet paper and wrapped it around her hand as if she was making a mitten out of it. She stood up, looked into the bowl and shook her head in disgust, knowing that even if she threw up for months it would still never be enough. Her sickness, the painful throbbing bruise in her gut, couldn’t simply be flushed down a toilet. She pushed the lever and then slapped the seat cover down. She gently wiped her mouth with the mitten of paper as she sat.
Monique had not thrown up like this since that early morning phone call she received from Mt. Everest, telling her that Robert and his crew had been in an accident—a freak avalanche. After searching for two hours with no sign of him, there was little hope that he survived.
“So he’s dead?” she asked.
“Well, we can’t confirm anything yet, Monique, but you know it just doesn’t look good,” the voice on the phone said.
“What would good look like?” was all Monique could say.
“I’m so sorry, Monique...but we um...we will keep you updated. Okay?”
Jenny, who had been visiting her mother for the weekend, poked her head into her mother’s room. It was the usual time for Robert to be making a call from Everest.
“Is that Daddy?” she asked, and sleepily reached out her hand to take the phone from her mother so she could speak with her father. Monique stopped her from taking it.
“What about the students?” Monique asked.
“We are not sure. Nothing’s been confirmed. It’s crazy up there and all I received was the news about Robert. We’ll keep you updated. I promise, Monique.”
“No, don’t keep updating me, just find him alive.”
“Look, I’m sorry, Monique. You know I wouldn’t be calling you if I thought there was any—”
The voice stopped mid-sentence and then said, “It’s just that...well, I just don’t want you to be finding out about him on the web or the news.”
Monique hung up the phone and ran past Jenny to the bathroom. She threw up for five minutes straight. She was kneeling on the floor in front of the toilet when Jenny leaned against the door.
“Mom, you okay? What’s wrong? Mom, what’s wrong?” When her mother didn’t answer, Jenny opened the door to find her mother sitting in between the toilet and bathtub.
“Mom, are you sick? Who was that on the phone?”
Monique just held her arms open to her daughter and said, “Daddy’s dead, baby...Daddy’s dead...”
While Monique sat in the hotel washroom only fifty feet away, Robert was still sitting on the stage. Twenty men and women dressed in white shirts and black pants were busy setting the tables for lunch. Lou had a pretty strong chorus of employees’ chanting, “I would walk 500 miles” going. And sure enough, Amir’s fear that the song might upset Robert looked to be coming true as he was now quickly rolling his wheelchair across the stage and straight in Amir’s direction. As Robert pushed forward, he made a gesture to Amir that indicated he wanted to speak to him.
The moment Robert arrived, Amir desperately tried to apologize.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Robert. I...I just did not think! I realize the song is not really appropriate.”
But just at that moment, Amir was interrupted by Lou, who was leaning over the lip of the stage and telling Amir to turn up the volume. There was a group of other happy singers gathered around Lou and singing loudly. They were also clapping to encourage this one guy, who was jumping up and down, to jump even higher.
Amir shrugged his shoulders. “I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Robert.”
“Turn up the volume,” cried out one of the happy singers.
Lou was still looking at Amir and pointing his finger up into the air. He repeated, “Louder! Turn the music up.”
Amir just kept shaking his head and opening up his arms, trying to convey how sorry he was to Robert.
“No, you should turn it up. It’s a good song and always sounds best when it’s loud,” Robert said.
Amir jerked his head in shock. That was the last thing he thought Robert would say.
“But after you do that, can you please help me down off the stage?”
“Of course, of course.” Amir pushed a lever up. Lou and his happy gang gave him the thumbs-up and Amir walked behind Robert until they got to the top of the stairs that led off of the stage. Then he grasped the handle grips on the back of the wheelchair firmly and leaned Robert towards him as he guided Robert down the stairs.
“Thanks, Amir,” Robert had to say in a loud voice so he could be heard over the music. But then he motioned for Amir to come closer. Amir leaned close to Robert’s face as Robert asked him, “Did you see which way my wife went?” Amir pointed to the double doors nearest to the stage. “She went out those doors. But would you like me to find her for you?”
“No,” Robert replied.
Amir watched Robert push his wheelchair through the crowd of people. Because of his height in the chair, he looked like a young child moving in a world of adults.
Amir could hear the song was about to end, so he ran up the stairs towards his table. When he got there, ready to play another song, he noticed Robert had changed direction and was now about to go
through the door at the side of the stage that led to a couple of storage rooms. The door was clearly marked ‘STAFF ONLY.’ Amir thought about stopping Robert, but then decided against it. He wouldn’t be in anyone’s way and he knew the storage rooms were locked. ‘And maybe Robert needed a little time for himself,’ he thought. After all, he had looked quite nervous to be speaking today and it also seemed like he had an unpleasant fight with his wife. So Amir smiled and actually said out loud to himself, “Yes, yes, let him go. The man must need a little space right now.”
31. PHILIP
It must have been the way Virginia got that little Manny to believe he belonged despite his obvious differences that led me back to Philip—the boy who slammed the door shut on the hope that people could ever change...I can’t remember the year I started doing those high school transition workshops, but I had never done a project like that before. My arrangement with the school and the leadership teacher was that I could video the journey and use it as a tool to raise money for future workshops. They would supply a couple of their media and communication students to help do the videotaping and the editing.
I was at Westmount High, Philip’s school. I was waiting in the office of the vice principal, Mr. Bosco, to meet the media and communication students that were going to help me. It had been about three months since I’d had that incident with Philip, but the moment he entered Mr. Bosco’s office, it was clear that he recognized me.
“Oh man, damn!” were the first words that came out of Philip’s mouth.
“Is there something wrong, Philip?” Mr. Bosco asked.
“No, sorry...I was...um...Look, I’m...I’m sorry,” Philip said in a voice that was barely audible.
“Well, where is Andrew Hunter?” Mr. Bosco asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” Philip quickly answered.
“All right, then. Mr. Sanchez, this is Philip Kong. Mr. Sanchez needs to speak with you, Philip. Why don’t you two talk? I’ll find out where Andrew is.” And with that, Mr. Bosco exited his office.
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