The Game of Life

“Patriotism… is the essence of identity,” said the boy in the wheelchair at the front of the classroom. “Can anyone tell me who said that?”
He didn’t realize that the rules of the assignment did not allow for questioning the audience. The audience knew it though, and nobody answered.
“Does anybody know?” he asked.
“Uh, no, I don’t know,” said one boy. The rest of us shook our heads.
I think Clay, the boy at the front of the room whose cerebral palsy confined him to a wheelchair, had expected a chorus of wrong answers—“Churchill!” “Benjamin Franklin!” “Thomas Paine!” “Jefferson! It must be Jefferson!” – and the lack of enthusiasm seemed to discourage him.
“I said it,” he finally said, proudly.
We all looked at each other. “I guess I should have figured that,” I whispered to a friend nearby.
Clay was an awkward case. On the one hand, he had a terrible disability and was certainly rising above it the best way he knew how. He was active in a number of clubs and extra-curricular activities, extremely opinionated, a personality around the school that was easily recognized by upper and lower classmen alike. On the other hand, he was also a total prick. His outspoken opinions frequently bordered on fascist, and “Patriotism is the essence of identity” was fairly typical, though only hinting at the militant xenophobia I had come to expect from him. Furthermore, and I know how terrible this sounds, he was constantly holding up his disability to those around him and asking to be congratulated for it.
“Yes,” his speech went on, “You might not think of it to look at me, but in spite of my physical disabilities I do a lot of thinking, and that quote is by me. That’s a thought that I had. And if you are willing to give life your all, you can have great thoughts of your own.”
After the speech was over Clay asked us what we thought, and we told him we didn’t think question and answer was allowed in the body of the speech, that maybe he should keep his questions rhetorical. He didn’t seem to know what rhetorical meant, and didn’t want to bother with it.
“But what did you think of the quote?” he wanted to know, “Weren’t you surprised that I came up with that?”
“Well, it doesn’t actually make a lot of sense,” someone ventured. “Isn’t identity kind of a personal thing? And I know that for a lot of people patriotism doesn’t enter into their sense of identity at all. And should it? Isn’t saying that your country defines who you are kind of dangerous?””
Clay got a little mad at this point, and there was a bit of heated discussion before our teacher brought us back on task.

Later that year, a basketball coach at our school died of cancer. There was a memorial one day in the gym, which was renamed in the coach’s honor. His widow was there, and several members of the school board, and the superintendent of schools spoke. Naturally our principal spoke too, and as he did I saw Clay’s mechanized wheelchair hum to a stop behind him.
“And now,” our principal announced, “The student council president will read a special poem by one of our own students, dedicated to the memory of Coach ______.”
And the SCA president stepped up and read Clay’s poem, “The Game of Life.”

“Here we go full court press
Oh no, I have to rest

I cannot rest now, I have a game
A game that might build our fame

On me my kids depend
This GAME I don’t want to end

I have to win this fight
I have to make it through the night

This is hard its true
But somehow I’ll get through

Here we go full court press
Oh no, I have to rest

I am tired, I fought to the end
On the Lord I now depend.”

And everyone solemnly bowed their heads. Few would have admitted it, but I believe a lot of people left that gym thinking differently about cerebral palsy.
“Why does a disability give you a right to have your doggerel read into a microphone at someone’s memorial service?” I imagine them thinking., “And why didn’t they find someone from the school literary magazine to write a poem? Aren’t they at least marginally more qualified?”
That’s certainly what I was thinking, but some thoughts aren’t appropriate to share. Clay taught me that. That, and that patriotism is the essence of identity.