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(More customer reviews)When Petey Corbin was born in 1920, very little was known about cerebral palsy. Trapped inside a body that he cannot control and a tongue that protrudes, Petey was committed to an insane asylum in Warm Springs Montana bearing the diagnosis of idiot. Once he is turned over to the state at age two, he never sees his family again.
Petey's life is marked by a series of shift changes. Once admitted to the Infants' Ward where he resides for the first decade of his life, he meets an angel. The angel is a young ward worker named Esteban who responds to Petey and knows this child is no idiot. The two bond and Petey learns to nod his head and respond to words. Esteban brings Petey chocolates and sadly loses his job after he tells a group of visitors not to talk about the young residents in their presence or call them freaks. "They are NOT freaks," Esteban tells them. "They are poor children!" Sadly, he is fired for taking this stand. That was in 1927.
Petey languishes for a few years after Esteban's departure and, for the first time in several years is taken outside. This trip is his transfer from the Infants' Ward to the Mens' Ward where he will receive total skilled nursing care. Sadly, it is not an appropriate placement for this child as many of his ward mates suffer from a variety of mental illnesses.
Fate intervenes; in the late 1930s a boy named Calvin was found freezing and abandoned outside the asylum doors. Admitted to Mens' Ward, he and Petey become good friends. Both wheelchair bound, the boys talk to each other with Calvin serving as Petey's interpreter. They even make pets out of the mice who come to eat scraps and crumbs. Their efforts are rewarded by their friendship with Joe, a kind ward worker who talks to the boys; gives them Christmas presents and takes a personal interest in them. Sadly, poor health forces Joe to retire, but he always sent the boys cards every year until his death.
The next angel to enter Petey's life was a loving nurse named Cassie. Cassie's husband was in the armed services during WWII and she needed the job. Once at Warm Springs, she, too, is drawn to Petey and Calvin and takes them out on the grounds and lets them play with her infant daughter. Sadly, she leaves during the latter part of the war to join her husband, who has been stationed in New York.
Life as Calvin and Petey know it becomes a metronome of monotony; they are ground into a routine until early 1965. An angel in a Chevrolet arrives at the gates; by then the asylum has been renamed "Warm Springs State Hospital." Owen, a retiree and a widower picked up where Esteban, Joe and Cassie left off. He recognizes the bond between Calvin and Petey and he takes a special interest in the men. He even convinces the director of nuring to provide Petey with a better wheelchair.
Owen retires in 1973 due to advanced age and poor health. He periodically visits his friends, but the pain of leaving them is great. Shortly after he retires, a "deinstitutionalization" takes place. Many of the residents are shipped to nursing homes and group homes based on their needs and level of care. During the winter of 1977-1978 Petey is admitted to a nursing home and Calvin a group home.
Luckily, the nursing staff recognize Petey's intelligence and humor. They learn, as Joe and others before them to "translate" Petey's words. So does another friend Petey makes in 1990, an unlikely meeting with 13-year-old Trevor, a neighborhood child who protects Petey from bullies pelting him with snowballs. In time, the young boy and the senior citizen form a bond that is truly heartwarming. The friendship these two have takes them far and wide and -- back to old friends Petey made.
This book makes me think of the 1965 Beatles classic, "In My Life." The lyrics of that song underscore this wonderful book.
This is one of the most moving stories I have ever read. This is a truly beautiful, uplifting, grim, serious, loving book. It might even make you cry. It is a testament to how love heals the spirit and is inclusive. I can't recommend this one highly enough. Please read this and share it with somebody.
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