Allison Howard – Walking heart

Chasing Pippies series 

You know, I feel strange admitting this, but whenever I come across a helpful person or someone that willingly goes out of their way to assist either myself or another person, without any motive whatsoever, I get a little nervous. It feels almost unpleasant, and just over the last several years I have become slightly fascinated and in awe of these people. I mean Why? How does that happen? Why would anyone do that? When it happens to me, I am in disbelief, it just doesn’t make sense, I mean, why would someone want to help me? 

I have never really known why I feel this way, I just always have. In truth, I feel it is a “Pippie” of mine, which I have just started exploring. One interesting example of this happening, was when I was in my younger years. After quite an emotionally challenging night out, I found myself in the grey of the morning, stuck with a flat car battery, unable to get home and without any money or mobile phone, (this was before everyone had one). I felt scared, tired, on my own, and in a not so pleasant neighborhood, looking like I would be late to work again! Feeling hopeless, I sat in my car with my head on the steering wheel, and I began to cry. 

As the tears hit the cracked vinyl leather of the horn, I heard a soft voice come through my open window. “Are you alright love?” The kind voice that floated into my ears made me stop my sobbing and turn my head to see where it came from. And there, framed by my car window, was a head completely covered in tattoos, dark blue squiggles symbols and words all across his forehead and temples, through his eyebrows, over his eyelids down his cheek bones, cascading down his chin and filling up his neck entirely with ink. 

I was completely taken aback, my only response to this was to start crying even more and scream “DO I LOOK LIKE I AM ALRIGHT?!” The tattooed face softened even more, and said slowly and very articulately “what’s wrong then darling?” This calmed me a little, and I started to explain about my long exhausting night, the fact that I will be late to work and probably get fired, and that my car battery was flat for the 100^th time this week. And just like that, after my emotional unloading and even more tears, the man (my hero) took his decorated face out of my window, stood up, grabbed his long heavy coated friend, that was with him by the shoulder, walked towards a BMW that was parked on the other side of the street, broke into the car, popped the hood and wrenched the battery from the engine block. Turning around, he then walked back and gave the thumbs up to tell me to pop the hood of my car and deftly swapped the battery from the BMW to mine. This all happened very quickly as I sat shocked immobile in my car. When he finished the swap the man slammed the hood down and came back to my window smiling and said “There you go love. Now, you get home and have some breakfast.” Then without another word, he and his silent stone-faced mate walked back down the street. With my mascara smudged in salt streams drying on my cheeks, I watched them walk until they got smaller and turned the corner. 

After they left, it took me a couple of moments, but I shook myself out of the trance I had fallen into, started my car and drove home. I am not sure if I thanked him or not, but I remember his smile saying to me, “all in a day’s work ma’am.” I am pretty sure I said thank you, I can’t really remember, I mean I would have had to, as these were people it was probably best to just thank and not get into a debate concerning the legalities of the situation. But I always remember this, and even though he probably ruined someone else’s morning by helping mine, this tattooed man who was living a “harder” life than I, was kind, he saw a young girl in distress and in his own way helped her out of it. This unlikely hero helped me, during a time in my life where help seemed so foreign. 

I have carried this memory with me always and from time to time I see his kind face, especially when I feel upset and alone, his dark tattooed eyes make me feel stronger, not safe, just stronger. You see he helped me when he didn’t have to. There are many people that would have walked past the crying girl in the car, pretending not to see her, not wanting to get involved, not wanting to help. This kindness, without hesitation, has moved with me my whole life, and lately I have been thinking about this situation and my unlikely hero again. 

So, why would I be thinking about this? I hear you ask. Well, we have just recently had the interesting news that my daughter has been diagnosed with the cocktail of Autism/ ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia. Now, please do not be concerned for us as this is great news, because now, with this being confirmed and realizing we are a neurodiverse family, we now know how to move forward and what is best for her future learning, wellbeing, and safety. 

This journey has not been easy, in fact it has been a 2 year long battle, getting her school and teachers to recognized that something was “not quite right”. And I tell you, the fight to get help for my struggling little baby has been immense. For reasons I do not fully understand, the resistance we have gotten has been baffling, almost insurmountable. And even as I received and produced letters of diagnosis from 3 different sources and the specialist pediatrician, announcing that she does indeed need help. I fell into an incredibly passive aggressive and ridiculous email thread concerning my daughter and her learning. 

This email ping pong was between myself, the vice principal, and her current teacher, both of which are “in charge” of my child’s primary school and apparently her learning. It was an argument concerning organizing a meeting between myself and the teacher so we can get a fresh plan to help my neuro-spicy child get back on track with her learning, so she can be ready to entre high school. The argument was specifically over the time and date of this meeting, in short they were refusing to work or take on any “extra load”, sighting government regulations and over time constraints. I was only asking for 1 hour of their time maximum, and I received a lengthy email back stating statistics and employment conditions with the sentence, “if we did this for every student we would send the school broke.” 

As I read this, I sat in my chair collapsed in defeat, like I did all those years ago, when I realized my car battery was dead. Now this time at my kitchen table in front of my computer I placed my head in my hands and closed my eyes. As the tears started to sting the back of my eye lids, the gentle tattooed face, hovered in my memory, with the warm smile of “you’ve got this love. Now let’s get you a new battery.” With this I snapped my head back up from my hands, took a single deep breath and responded to this email. This fight was not over.

Now, I know am not alone in this issue, the current education system in Victoria, Australia, seems to only cater for the capable, not the gifted, and defiantly not the needy. At the moment this system, particularly the public one, is overwhelmed by the sudden “emergent” of these children that require “more attention” than the others. However, I feel this is not a new thing, we are just seeing it clearly for the first time. Children of my vintage that would have been classed in this similar diversity group, were looked over, avoided, shut down, passed over, given free class time, labeled “difficult”, “trouble makers”, sent to time out, and forgotten about. Basically, my generation and the ones before, were the children that fell through the gap. No one even blinked (well not many), as so many children were either squished and manipulated into the systems cookie cutter mold, and if they did not fit within this structure, established centuries ago, they were left to fall down the ever-expanding education gap, emerging as lazy trouble makers, bad eggs and up to no good. In short no one helped them. 

Now looking back to today, it is so wonderful to see this gap narrowing, to know that there are people out there willing to help and lift these children of need up. To hold them above the gap so they can walk safely and confidently into adulthood, with the rest of the neuro-typical. It is just unfortunate I have found myself facing the old system again, the one that failed me, the one that watched me fall into the gap, the one that did not help me. 

This is where one of my pippies lies, but I will talk about that in my next blogs  “The car battery – part 2 & 3” However these thoughts above, have inspired my latest illustration……………………….

So as I straddle the gap over no man’s land, with my lived experience flaming the fire in my heart, I will battle on. I refuse to let my child tumble down the same gap I did. I will fight tooth and nail to prevent my daughter from the same fate that I fell into, simply due to a system filled with overwhelmed, under resourced, tired, and complacent teachers; and as awful and painful as it feels fighting for your helpless child and the right to a basic education, I will fight on. 

With all this buzzing around in my head, right there at my kitchen table, I rallied my strength and responded to that email and eventually obtained a meeting time that wouldn’t send the school broke. Right then, I realized that I do not care how many car batteries it takes, my daughter will make it home, she will be confident in her journey and discoveries through life and not made to feel, wrong, at fault or alone, I will be the one to help. 

I hope everyone is keeping safe and warm and enjoying the start to June. We are half way through the year which is crazy. See you again soon for part 2, I wont leave you hanging for long.