What is in a Name

By the last day of elementary school, she had been teased so many times by her classmates that if she could accurately count there was cruelty embedded from the first to the last tally. The mildly mentally retarded girl said very little during school hours and her classmates liked it that way. She was timid, unsophisticated, and scholastically challenged. She attracted no friends and her loneliness undoubtably contributed to devaluing herself as a human being. I knew that there was something wrong with her but I did not know what. It was before I had an understanding of what developmental disability truly meant.

On the last day of school, she seized the attention of the class after her teacher called her name. It was an oridinary thing, the teacher calling her name and her not answering. So nobody expected a response from her. In a stern manner unbecoming of her docile nature, she voiced objection.

"My name is not Lorella. I do not care if it is the last day of school, you have been calling me Lorella all year. I forget to cross my t's, my name is Loretta."

Under these strange circumstances is how the class learned her name. One of the first things I learned about disability came by Loretta, hear her roar. I think of Loretta about this time every year as local school's begin to pile out in favor of summer vacation. Funny, what you can learn in a name.