Teachers II

I hope you don't mind if I share a small bit of personal history with you: one of my uncles, my mother's youngest brother, died in March this year, in his mid-sixties. I was not able to go to his funeral, though my sister-in-law and brother were there, and they told me just what an extraordinary event it turned out to be, as I would have expected from such a loved man, given the positive way he had touched so many lives.

My uncle Francis Xavier was born in the mid-Forties; the last of eight children, he was born with Down's Syndrome. This was the least interesting thing about him; though, I've always felt that the extra chromosome with which he was endowed also made him more capable than other people of giving love to those around him.

My mother said he was always everyone's favourite, because he was guaranteed to cheer up grumpy members of the family with a kind word, a pithy observation, and, failing all else, a little hug. He wasn't all sweetness and light, by any means: he was just as capable of moodiness and tantrums as any kid (and that got dealt with in the same way as with the other children); he had a typical teenage period, too, and was a sly wit, always being able to mask a shrewd observation with a well-intentioned joke. But the thing that made him forever different to others was his naturalness, his honesty, and his love.

My earliest memories of him must have been when he was in his early thirties; he always made time for his sibling's children, and he was especially good at calming down babies, who would always fall asleep when he gently held them. He had impeccable manners, both at the table and at other social events, nor he was he slow in correcting those younger than him on theirs. He had his little routines that he stuck to - reading in the mornings, and a favourite radio program at night - but he loved travelling, and being outdoors; he was a mean flower and vegetable gardener.

But the extraordinary thing about him was his love for others. It may have been because love was all he had ever known from the people around him all his life, but, regardless, it was all he ever seemed to radiate. The affect it had on everyone in our family, from his own siblings, to their children, was profound. Patient and kind, he brought these qualities out in others; he may well have been the person who inspired my mother to become a teacher for toddlers with learning difficulties. My grandmother may have been the family matriarch, but my uncle Francis Xavier also held the family together with his presence.

He lived with my grandmother until she died when he was around fifty, though he had always had his own room at a special school he attended 3 days a week in his later years, where he was taught a variety of skills; he turned out to have a real talent as a baker and chocolatier.

He was luckier than most in many ways, to be sure: the family was fortunate enough to have been financially secure, so, from an early age, he was always provided for and attended to with the best and latest education, which made a real difference to the quality of his later life. Also, he had no serious physical disabilities, for in those decades there was not the expertise or knowledge that exists now to identify and successfully treat some childhood conditions.

He himself never married, though he had a number of girlfriends; he was a regular church-goer, and he led the singing at his mother's funeral in his usual quiet and thoughtful manner. He was generously provided for in her will; his brothers and sisters, many years prior to my grandmother's death, had already worked out between them a schedule to allow Francis Xavier to come and go between their homes, and there was never any lack of people willing to let him stay with them.

Certainly he was lucky, but I know that my whole family felt blessed by him too. He was never going to develop a drug habit or drive drunk, or get conceited or deceitful, and he would forever be free of some of the more immediate financial and social pressures that most adults have. Most of us may feel that we would be better people than we are now, given the same circumstances; but he truly was that better person, and so made better people of those around him.

I sometimes miss my smiley uncle Francis Xavier, but I'll never forget him, and what he taught the people around him. I'm sure it wasn't all a bed of roses whilst he was growing up - but when is it ever with children? Like all children, my family never expected him, or knew at the beginning what they would be getting with him. But, by the end, we all knew, and wouldn't have changed a day of his whole beautiful life if we had all had the choice.