Lewis: beyond pity or fear

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

Pity gets in the way. You know people don't want pity, so you stay away.

Discomfort is a problem, too. Yours. Theirs. Should you go up and say hello? Would a hello be mistaken for pity? What would you say after hello? What would you talk about?

Someone is in a wheelchair and you'd like to ask, "How come you're in a wheelchair? What happened?" Only those sound like the wrong words and because you don't know the right ones, you say nothing.

Someone is walking down the street with a seeing-eye dog, a beautiful dog, and you pass by silently, not complimenting the dog, because you don't know if you should.

A child is being wheeled in a carriage. You wait behind his mother in line at the bank, but you don't acknowledge the child. You talk about the line, the weather, all the while wanting to kneel down and say hello, but afraid.

Afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Afraid of intruding where you've no right to intrude.

Afraid of a situation you've no experience with.

It is fear that keeps us from reaching out. Not selfishness. Not indifference. Ordinary fear. "You have to come to them because they can't come to you," the pastor of my church said to parishioners a few months ago. He was inviting people to introduce themselves to Sheila and Nancy Nolan, adult twins with muscular dystrophy. People see them in church regularly. People smile at them. But few speak to them, not because they don't want to, or wouldn't like to - but because they don't know what to say.

Proof that they'd like to speak, to reach out, is this weekend's annual telethon. The Muscular Dystrophy Association Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon - despite being broadcast on a weekend when people are traditionally outside - has been, for 26 consecutive years, one of this country's most anticipated and watched programs.

If Americans didn't care about people whose bodies don't work quite the way they should, they wouldn't watch this show and wouldn't continue to dig so deeply into their pockets to provide help.

When Lewis began the telethon back in 1966, few Americans even knew what muscular dystrophy was. Most didn't know it was genetic, something you're born with, something that encompasses many neuromuscular diseases. Many thought you could catch it. Many more believed that if a person's legs didn't work, his mind didn't either.

Lewis changed people's perceptions. He educated the world by putting a face on muscular dystrophy, by bringing before the camera adults and kids who were just like everyone else, who went to school, got degrees, held jobs, got married, lived full lives.

His first telethon broke a record, raising more than a million dollars. Lewis continues to break records. Last year, despite a spate of negative publicity - Lewis was accused of demeaning the disabled by presenting them as people to be pitied - his telethon, broadcast on 200 stations in the U.S. and Canada, took in $45,071,857 - setting yet another record.

Without the telethon and Lewis' devotion to it, the Muscular Dystrophy Association might still be an organization known only to those who need it. But because of Lewis' leadership and the commitment of millions, the association has thrived.

"Each man must choose the cause closest to his heart, and I've chosen mine," he has said.

For his life's work, he's received mostly accolades. But he's been criticized, too. He's been accused of treating adults likes kids. Of treating kids as "objects to be pitied." Of doing and saying the wrong things.

People fear that they'll open their mouth and put a foot in it. But that's the risk people who do anything have to take. Hold the door for one person and he may say, "Thank you;" hold it for another and he may say, "I can do it myself."

Will a hello be mistaken for pity? Maybe. Maybe not. But silence will never be mistaken. It's easily recognized for what it is: fear of taking a chance.