I Am the Same as You

         "Mama, I don't want to go back to school," Kianna whined.  "I don't like it there!"

         "Come on, honey.  Everything will be just fine."  Tears filled Maria's eyes as she looked lovingly at her adopted daughter.  Physically they were completely opposite, but in her heart and mind Kianna could not have been any more her child if she had carried her for nine months and given birth.

         Maria wrapped her arms around the thin twelve-year old and rocked her.

         "It's Friday, Sweetheart," she began, "and we'll do something wonderful this weekend."

         Kianna dressed, had breakfast, and took her medications before she and Maria walked hand in hand to the school.

         "Have a good day, Angel," Maria called after her.

         The door had barely closed behind Kianna when the teasing began.  "Careful!" shouted one boy.  "You don't want to catch what she has!"

         Girls walked on the other side of the hallway and boys tried to yank away her backpack as she ran past, her vision blurred by hot, sad tears.

         Kianna slouched in her desk in the back corner of the classroom trying to become invisible.  Her adopted parents had fought long and hard for her to be able to attend public school with "normal" children.  If this is what normal is, then I don't want to be normal Kianna thought, closing her eyes.

         Once class began the other students ignored her.

         "Today we are going to work on writing essays," Miss Taylor announced.  "Think about the last time that someone picked on you and teased you for being different.  Write an essay that talks about why you were teased, how it made you feel, and why you feel that your differences should be respected or even considered valuable."

         In the silence of the classroom Kianna's pen flew across the notepad at record speed.

         That afternoon, each student read the essay they had written in front of the class.  Shy and uncomfortable, Kianna crept to the front of the room dodging dirty looks and crumpled balls of paper.

         "I am the same as you," she began softly.  "I have feelings and I long for friendship."

         "Speak up, dear," Miss Taylor encouraged.

         Kianna cleared her throat.  "I am the same as you.  I have feelings and I long for friendship.  Yes, I am different, too, but we are all a little different.  But it's not because my skin is a different color or because I speak a different language, or anything like that.  I am different because my mother did something before I was ever born and I have to suffer because of it.  I am different because my mother took drugs and I was born with HIV.  I can't change that, and neither can the doctors with all of their medicine, and neither can you with all of your teasing. 

         "You can't catch HIV from breathing the same air as me or walking down the same side of the hallway, or even using the same restroom, and still I am pushed aside, trampled on, and left out of everything fun because I have HIV.

         "Did you ask to have blue eyes?" she looked up at a girl in the front row.

         "Did you ask to have red hair?"  Her gaze shifted to meet the eyes of a freckled boy in the middle of the classroom.

         "I didn't ask to be born with HIV.  I didn't have any choice in the matter but today, as I think about all of the things that all of you said make you different and why those differences are important, I can think of only one thing that makes my having HIV important:  because of it, I will have more compassion and more sympathy for others who are suffering or discriminated against.  I can see the pain in their eyes and the hurt they carry in their hearts because they're left out of everything that human beings want and need.

         "No, you may never accept or understand what it is that makes me different, but that's okay.  You don't have to.  Just remember that someday something could happen to you or someone you love, and when the world pushes you down and rubs your face in the mud or rips away your backpack and dumps it on the floor, or spills your lunch tray in your lap in the cafeteria, remember my words: 

         "The same thing about me that makes you hate me and mistreat me now will draw us together then, because through the illness I bear and the suffering I endure, I have learned tolerance, compassion, and acceptance of others, and when you need it, it will be there even though you treat me the same way now."

         Kianna walked back to her seat in silence and not one student dared to look into her eyes as she passed. 

         "Please open your books and read silently," Miss Taylor instructed.  Books opened, but no one read a word except for Kianna. 

         Just before the bell rang to end the school day Miss Taylor stood up.  "Class, I have an assignment for you to do over the weekend.  With your parents' help, I want you to look up information about Aids and HIV.  Discuss the information with your parents, and bring it to class on Monday."

         The bell rang and Kianna waited as usual for her classmates to leave the room. Instead of loud talking and laughing as they ran to the door, they were quiet and walked slowly to the hallway. Several of them looked back at her as they left; they looked sad. 

         "See you Monday," she called after them hopefully.

         "Yes, see you Monday," said a girl with long brown braids, looking back around the corner.  She looked at her friends and they nodded.

         Kianna smiled.  Perhaps the school year wasn't going to be so bad after all.