No Shame in Trying!

I didn’t want to infect my friends at the Frankie Lemmon school with my horrible cold. When I stayed home, I opened the N&O and read about “Ms. Pearce”. The lead sentence read: “In 50 years working at Hilltop Home, Etherlene Pearce missed so few days of work, her employees swear she never took a sick day.”

“For shame, Mr. Pat!” said the voice in my head.

The article went on. "She came rain, snow, sleet or hail… It didn't make a difference if there was two feet of snow…”

“Hang your head, Mr. Pat!” said the voice.

But I read on… I learned that Ms. Pearce spent 50 years caring for developmentally challenged at Hilltop Home (www.hilltophome.org), a private, nonprofit residential center that serves children with severe developmental and medical disabilities. Ms. Pearce retired only last year as the home's director at age 89. But she’s still going!

“For shame! Look away! Don't look at Mr. Pat!”

Raleigh is just full of inspiring people like Ms. Pearce.

...For example, Dorothea Dix.

While teaching Sunday School to a group of women in prison, young Dorothea found her calling. The prisoners, a mix of criminals and the mentally challenged, were kept in dark, damp cells with no blankets or furniture. She was horrified! Dorothea spent the rest of her life lobbying for better conditions for the mentally challenged. She never gave up and in 1856, largely through her work, Raleigh's Dorothea Dix Hospital opened for the care of mentally ill patients. By the 1930s there were over 2,000 patients on a site that at one time included 2,354 acres.
Even though she was weak and suffered from tuberculosis, Dorothy never gave up.

“Oh me! Oh my!” said the voice. “You can never be like Dorothy!”

And then there’s Frankie Lemmon himself.

The son of Frank and Georgia Lemmon, a Presbyterian minister and his wife, young Frankie was born with Down Syndrome. In 1965, the Lemmons were appalled to learn there was no kindergarten in Wake County that would enroll a child like Frankie. So, with help from members of Raleigh’s Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church, they opened a kindergarten class for children with mental retardation. Today there are classes for three-, four-, and five-year-olds at Raleigh’s Hayes Barton Baptist Church.

The Lemmons knew that Frankie would never get better, but they never gave up.

And neither will I. There is no shame in failure. The shame is in the not trying…sometimes again and again.

Be still, stupid voice.