Do unto others

Michael was an energetic 8-year-old boy. He raced up and down the street with the other kids—his legs pumping the bicycle's pedals briskly. He could ride just as fast as any other boy could with the speed to go anywhere.

When he was on his bicycle, he was just like every other boy. When he wasn't riding his bike, he was different.

Michael was born with Spina Bifida, a neural tube defect that happens in the first month of pregnancy when the spinal column doesn't close completely. With three types of Spina Bifida, some include muscle weakness or paralysis below the area of the spine. When this occurs, children sometimes need to learn mobility skills and often require the aid of crutches, braces or wheelchairs. With the aid of leg braces that extended from his heel up to his mid-calf, Michael was able to walk normally.

While this birth defect might hinder the spirit of other kids, for Michael, it did no such thing. He was exceptionally friendly, inquisitive and outgoing. He became the unofficial welcoming committee whenever somebody new moved on to his street. Despite his disability, Michael knew everybody in his small community of about 15 streets.

As other children tend to do, Michael graduated from elementary school and moved on to high school with the rest of his peers. Some provisions were made to accommodate his disability—the school administration had arranged it so that all his classes were on the lower floor of the school building. Other than that, Michael attended regular classes with the other students and participated in the gym requirement of the curriculum. Despite his hampered mobility, Michael was a typical teenager.

When it came time to graduate high school, part of the requirement was that all students perform 40 hours of community service. After pondering where he could perform his 40 hours of community service, Michael decided that he would volunteer at his high school's special needs program for students with developmental and physical handicaps. All of the students suffered from some sort of disability including Downs Syndrome, Autism and Cerebral Palsy.

Every lunch hour, Michael made his way to the special needs classroom. While he was trying to eat his lunch, he would help those who needed assistance with their lunch. Some of the students were moderately functional, and Michael would only need to help them get their lunch packs out and unwrap their food. Other students couldn't eat on their own and required much more care.. For these students, Michael diligently feed them their lunch bite by bite and washed their hands and face after they were done. He didn't miss a single lunch, and as time went by, Michael built such a rapport with these students, that they looked forward to seeing him on their lunch break.

When Michael completed the 40 hours of community service and no longer needed to come and help the special needs program, he was relieved at first that he was free to do whatever he wanted during lunch. However, he realized that the special needs kids still needed help. The first lunch hour when he was officially off community duty, Michael arrived at the special needs room just in time for lunch. Immediately he started helping the more mobile kids pull out their lunch bags. When he was done, he moved over to the other kids who needed to be handfed and started to feed them.

For the rest of the school year, Michael did this—he gave up his lunch hour of freedom to help the special needs program. And when he graduated, his future plans included considering a career that would enable him to work with special needs children.

"Who would be better to help a special needs kid than someone who knows what it's like to have special needs and need some help once in awhile?" he reasoned.

Despite his hindered mobility caused by Spina Bifida, Michael may have acted like any other 8-year-old boy or high school graduate. But it's without a doubt that his heart is what distinguished him from others. What teenager would continue to volunteer his lunch to help students less fortunate than him?

For Michael, it was no special undertaking. It was simply an act of compassion.