“If I never met Rosemary, never knew anything about handicapped children, how would I have ever found out?” said Eunice Kennedy Shriver on National Public Radio. “Because nobody accepted them anyplace.”
When she died in August at age 88, the adventures and deeds of this indomitable Kennedy were internationally celebrated. From founding the Special Olympics to her early days in social work to her love for a good cigar – Shriver navigated life on her terms.
Among pioneering attributes worth taking to heart is Shriver’s decision to love her sister Rosemary for exactly who she was. Where others saw limitation, Eunice saw capability. It might be hard today – some 30 years after our country guaranteed the right to a free education for all students – to fathom how different things used to be.
Before passage of The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) in 1975, the first major law guaranteeing children the right to a public education, kids with intellectual or related disabilities were generally unwelcome in America’s schools. Goodbye … and good luck.
Indeed, this reality led a group of local parents to meet in Groton in 1952 and pass a hat to establish a means of educating their children with intellectual and related disabilities. Now, some 57 years later, this grassroots non-profit institution with national affiliation called The Arc of New London County serves more than 400 people every year.
My own family’s identification with the Kennedys went beyond the fact that there were a lot of them and a lot of us and we were Catholic too. My mother and Eunice Shriver shared the gut-wrenching knowledge of an eight-letter word that started with R and ended with D, a word that unfairly labeled – and limited – the possibilities available for sisters dearly loved. Each knew the frustration and stigma of defending her sister amid the taunts of schoolyard bullies whose behavior spoke to the sentiments of the times: Differences aren’t welcome here. Each knew the pain of watching her sister mocked even as she demonstrated she was capable of more … much more. Shriver called Special Olympics coaches on the carpet when they expected less of their athletes. Separate wasn’t equal, and she wouldn’t settle for it.
My aunt, who had severe epilepsy, made it to third grade as my mother recalls. “She’d have seizures and fall down, and the episodes got much worse as she got older. You just never knew when it was going to happen. And the other children were frightened, so they told us we needed to keep her home.”
Did she have an intellectual disability? “I used to help her with her homework, but I never thought of it like that. She was my sister, and I loved her. We’d sit together working and I never noticed if she was different. Maybe she was, but then again – what would I have been looking for?” My mother wasn’t looking for less. She was looking for more.
Much as Franklin D. Roosevelt concealed his wheelchair to preserve his political capital, Joseph Kennedy limited his daughter Rosemary’s exposure. But for Joe Kennedy, the “miracle” antidote – removal of the frontal lobe of his daughter’s brain – didn’t live up to its promise. My mother’s sister likewise had a mysterious operation to “cure” agitation and escalating epilepsy. I hear of Rosemary sitting in a chair, rocking, and mumbling after her lobotomy. I remember my aunt seated on a kitchen chair….
In a family that offered our nation profiles in courage, Shriver was by all accounts eminently courageous. One can imagine Eunice being the only Kennedy with the courage to tell Joe that his grand plan was a grand fiasco.
“Kennedy [the President] did a lot for people with disabilities,” the director of a disability studies program at an East Coast university recently said. “But most people don’t know that Eunice was right there behind him with her foot on his butt, kicking him, making him do it.”
A Special Olympics executive attests that there’s spirited competition in the Shriver family, with siblings trying to outdo one another in charitable enterprises. Some of this stems from being one of many. Eunice explained it this way to the Christian Science Monitor in 1975: “When you’re in a big family, you have to hustle all the time.”
Being in a large family teaches us other lessons too. The child who runs fast looks out for the one who’s slow. The child who is good at math helps the sibling who is not. There are lots of ways to build character; children from large families subconsciously learn that helping each other is one way to do it. What Rosemary taught Eunice and what my Aunt taught my mother is how profoundly strength and disability coexist, how our own deficiencies make us all differently abled in so many ways.
A friend whose daughter had Down Syndrome fought tears as he related how she had been ridiculed in a neighborhood park. I imagine my burly pal struggling as he listened to the playground bullies poking fun at his daughter.
The R word made him see red. He tried to get Mary to go for an ice cream, but she swung happily on. Mary played on the swings until she was good and ready to go. When she finished, she hopped off her swing and ran toward her Dad. Then, as if she’d forgotten something, she stopped. She turned. She looked directly at the children who’d been making fun of her. She smiled.
Mary had a message for the kids on the swings. “I love you.”
My friend shakes his head. “Can you imagine what my Mary taught me about forgiveness in that moment?” Mary knew what it takes many of us a lifetime to learn: It’s a big mistake to let other people’s opinions of our potential limit our lives.
I told my mother recently that it’s politically incorrect to use the R word anymore. Mom is old school. Traditional. Conservative.
Her passion surprised me. “I’m so glad to hear that. Oh my goodness. That’s a terrible word. That’s just such a terrible word to use for a human being.”
Four sisters. One father. A daughter. Worlds apart, yet united in knowledge: Human beings are human capital. Why expect less when we can expect more?
Fortunately, for people unfairly labeled everywhere, two sisters had a brother who became President of the United States. And he knew what Eunice knew.
She never let him forget it.
Kathleen Stauffer is executive director of The Arc of New London County. To learn more about empowerment opportunities for people with intellectual and related disabilities in Southeastern Connecticut, please visit www.thearcnlc.org
Photo by dbking 
