How Life Becomes Real

Okay, so tonight I was talking with some friends of mine about the job that I have. Just so you know I work at a middle school and I'm a student aid with a student who has special needs. When I had started this job I felt like this would be a perfect opportunity to pour into a kid and be a good example and role model for him, but the longer I've known him I've learned more from him than I'm sure he has ever accidentally learned from me. To give you a little background into his life he contracted tuberculosis when he was 2 months old. Later the tuberculosis escalated to meningitis. With that came encephalitis and seven strokes, so needless to say he has been through many things that most of us could not even begin to describe, let alone construct how we would feel if they were to happen to us. Through all of these hardships and struggles he has gone on to achieve much than what many people initially thought he would. I soon learned in August at the beginning of the school year that there was something much different about him. His attitude did not show that he was unaware of his shortcomings or furthermore, upset about them. Instead he enjoyed school, the people around him, and most importantly life in general. I got the feeling that each day was a new experience for him. A new test of what he was capable of and a new opportunity to show that there are no boundaries on the possibilities of any one life. He had this angelic, excited smile each day he entered school and he gave full effort. I began thinking to myself someone who seems so ubpeat and appreciative of life has got to have personal thoughts on how precious it is, whether it me faith in a higher being or a general appreciation for life as a journey. I began asking him questions that he seemed unable to answer every now and then. I would never force anything and he would always say "I don't know" if he had no clue how to answer the question. Well I stopped asking questions and one day I was suprised when he decided to divulge some wisdom about heaven upon me. We were in class one afternoon and we were working on a worksheet on which he had to write an exclamatory sentence. The sentence he chose to write was I like thunderstorms.
"You like thunderstorms ?"
"Yeah, I do."
"How come?"
"It means God is bowling."
"Okay."
"I've met God."
"You have?"
"When I was sick I went to heaven and I met God and my two gaurdian angels. God and I played Legos and cars. My guardian angels sent me back down after awhile."
"Why did they send you back?"
"My mom was worried about me."
"What did God look like?"
"Like the sun."
"These guardian angels are they relatives that have past away or are these specific beings that God has assigned to you?"
"God assigned them to me."
"Do you feel like you have a purpose in your life because you have experienced that?"
"Yes."
When he was six years old he had some complications and was in a coma at Riley Hospital and during this time he had an out of body experience and God revealed all of these things to him. I quickly realized that this wasn't about what I could enstill in him, but what I could learn from him. I mean he is someone that truly knows what it is like to be truly in touch with God and anything outside of that he doesn't concern himself with. The grace and joy that he approaches life with inspire all around him. He truly "knows life" as Jack Kerouac said in "On the Road." He knows what it's like to enjoy the glint of sun off a window on a brisk autumn day, to savor the hug from a friend, to revel in the accomplishment of a good grade on a test. Everything he experiences he appreciates more because he knows how fleeting and special it is. If I could ask God for one thing it would be the simplistic, yet solid understanding of what is truly important in life that this student shows me everyday. It's when I am truly confronted with people like this that life becomes real to me. People that show me that life isn't about what you achieve and how socially well connected you are, but what you do with the time you're given. I only hope that I do a tenth of what my student has done with my own life.