Yesterday was my cousin's graduation. After seven years of herculean effort he finally got his AA. I was nominated by my boss at St. Pete College- and requested by my cousin- to push him around Tropicana Field and help him to find his way through the ceremony.

In case I haven't mentioned it before, my cousin (we'll call him Wren here, for totally noncheesy reasons that I nontheless cannot disclose) has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and has been living with it for 24 years. He's also legally blind. So basically, his limbs have atrophied into fragile, nearly immobile twigs, and he can't see.

(Here at the law firm we often get clients- or wannabe clients- coming in and complaining about how AWFUL their BACK PAIN is and how they NEEEEEEEEED- REEEEALLY REEEEALLY NEEED- demerol, valium, trigger point injections, and so on to get through the day. Wren has never taken any medication despite having a pain machine for a body, and so when I run into people like this I usually want to slap them upside the head, tell them to count their blessings, and check them into rehab.)

Wren's illness is totally obvious, and maybe even frightening, to anyone who sees him, and yet if you're helping him get around, people pretend he's not there, and nearly always talk to you and not him. We've developed a joke around this. Years ago his mom was talking over him even though he was telling her something important REALLY LOUDLY, and he said, "Jesus, even if I was shouting I'M ON FIRE you still wouldn't listen to me, would you?" So sometimes when someone talks about him rather than TO him, or otherwise pretends he's not there, he'll do this:

Asshole: I was wondering if you could ask him if he wants to sit over by home plate while he's waiting for the ceremony to begin, or whether he'd prefer to just hang out over by the faculty's chairs in front of the platform?

Wren [quietly]: Excuse me, but I think I'm on fire. Call a paramedic.

Asshole: What did he just say?

Me [smothering laughter]: He said either way will be fine.

Yesterday was particularly funny because Wren had two honors cords around his gown, meaning a GPA of 3.75 or better. And yet when we went to get the cords, the woman asked me, "How many honors cords is he getting?" We had a good laugh about that. He's reading War and Peace right now.

When I wheeled Wren across the stage the whole crowd clapped. The stadium wasn't packed, mind you, but there were a few thousand people clapping for Wren. I think he was touched, but it's hard to tell; I didn't ask him, and JRA has affected him in such a way that he doesn't really have facial expressions. Well, he sort of does, but because his lips are his only really agile muscles and he permanently faces to the left, his expressions are usually a little opaque.

I can't tell you how proud of him I was. Several people thanked me for wheeling him around. I kept telling them that it was an honor that he'd asked me. And an honor it was.

I got him a copy of Love and Death for a present, and his party last night was well-attended by friends of his parents. He has no friends of his own in the area, only a few people he knows from the internet; painfully shy, he almost never leaves the house. I keep telling him that he should make other people adjust to him rather than trying to stay out of sight. I haven't found the right way to get him to listen to me about that. I guess I'm on fire.