Something About Me

Time to reveal a bit more about myself. I am a middle-aged {I never liked that expression, because to me middle-aged is half as
old as one is GOING to be)single woman. I still live with my mother due to a
physical disability. We have separate apartments; mine is downstairs, and Mom's is upstairs. The computer is upstairs.
I have poor eye-hand co-ordination, and a perceptual-motor problem. To put it as simply as possible, this means that my hands cannot copy what my eyes see. This is why I took exception in a review on amazon.com to something Beverly Cleary wrote in one of her books.
In one of her notes to the principal, Maggie's teacher, Mrs. Leeper, writes:
"Maggie is now reading cursive. I saw her reading what I had written on the chalkboard. If she can read it, she can write it."
Not necessarily. There are children (and adults) with perceptual motor handicaps, poor eye-hand co-ordination, and other, often unrecognized, disabilities, who CANNOT write well, even though their reading skills may be at grade level or higher. I feel that Beverly Cleary (who has been one of my favorite authors since I was in the third grade) does a disservice to these people with this passage.
I was reading at an early age, but I still can't write legibly. How many times was I scolded by my teachers who felt that since I read so well, my sloppy penmanship was due to carelessness and laziness? "She's just not trying!"
My poor co-ordination also gives me a problem with my balance. I can walk all right in my own home and my own yard, where I don't have to worry about people in a hurry pushing into me. So I only go out and about if I have someone to hold on to.
Another aspect of my perceptual problem is that I cannot see where things are in relationship to where I am. I can see WHAT it is, but I won't be able to point to it accurately, nor can I tell what other people are pointing to. This meant that I saw the teacher pointing to me when, in reality, she was calling on someone else, and vice-versa. I can't remember how many times I had to write:
"I will not call out." or "I will pay attention."
I was also one of the kids other kids picked on and called "REE-tard!" I'm sure that some, at least, wish they could apologize. They can't, but they CAN teach their children and grandchildren not to make fun of people.
After I had become a Catholic, someone told me that Purgatory would be much worse than anything that happened to me in school.
I responded, "No, I think it will be better, because it will be FAIR. I won't suffer anything I don't DESERVE in Purgartory."
And as I type this, it occurs to me that Purgatory won't only be FAIR; it will be MERCIFUL, because God is merciful. I'll suffer in Purgatory much LESS than I deserve.