Smile

Smile

(In loving memory of Samantha Jane McCarthy 3/15/98-10/15/09)

I’m easily excited, energetic, and a generally happy person, but I wasn't always like this. Yes, before I started school I was very much the same, but school presented a problem. Starting around first grade, people started bullying me. The reason for the abuse was this: As (I think) I've mentioned before, I was diagnosed with autism at the very end of my 6th grade year. As a result, throughout my grade school years, I didn't have a label for what was wrong with me. From the perspective of some of my classmates, I was weird for no reason. This was not the only factor, however.

I am a people pleaser. I always have been, and I alway will be. Now, my class was incredibly rowdy. The teachers were always yelling at my class because of the amount of noise they made. Since I always wanted to make people happy, whenever the teachers yelled I felt like I personally, was failing the teacher(s) and (s)he was yelling directly at me. By second grade, I was so paranoid that I couldn't concentrate on anything except, how much trouble the class was going to get in on any particular day. To help me cope, the teacher(s) would tell one of the more well behaved students that a scolding was about to take place. The student who was chosen, would then tell me and I would put my head down, cover my ears so hard that I would shake. While that coping skill helped, the biggest reason I survived second and third grade, was because of a girl; S.M.

In one particular incident, the class was being even louder than usual when the teacher was out of the room. My heart started to pound, my eyes started to tear up, and I started to hyperventilate. I begged everyone to stop, but nobody did. S.M. (who sat next to me at the time), put her hand on my shoulder. She told me to put my head down and breathe. The teacher returned, and as expected, yelled at whole class. The whole time S.M. knelt next to me, and whispered, “You’re okay Mitchell, it's all gonna be okay.” Even though I was still incredibly stressed, because she was there, all I could do was smile.

Another time, this kid in my class was bullying me. He was calling me stupid, annoying, weird, etc... as he always did, and I got kind of upset. The thing is, if you are called something over and over again, eventually you start to believe it. At the end of the day, S.M. and I walked down to the kindergarten classroom to meet our brothers for pickup. As we walked, she asked me what had happened and I told her. She figured out pretty quickly that I was starting to believe the things people were telling me. “You know none of that stuff is true, right?” I told her that I thought she was wrong, and her eyebrows furrowed. “No, I’m not,” S.M. said, with confidence. “You’re smart, and kind, and funny. Don’t let people make you feel like you are not. Just be happy.”

I believed her and for a long time, I was positive again. When S.M. passed away, I came to a horrifying realization: because she was gone, I was never going to be happy again. In slightly more poetic terms, you can’t spell “smile” without S.M. This was my thought process for a long time. So many people, told me exactly what S.M. told me- be happy, but I truly believed that it wouldn't be okay without her. I guess that's the beauty of Sam's Fans though.

For those of you who don’t know, Sam's Fans is a nonprofit organization that raises money to support music and art therapy all across the state of Ohio. It was founded by my good friend Mrs. (Nikki) McCarthy, who just so happens to be S.M.’s mother. The beauty of the Sam’s Fans is this: Mrs. McCarthy took something horrible, something so unimaginably depressing, and turned it into something that not only makes me (and everyone who knew S.M.), smile on a regular basis, but also spreads those smiles to kids just like her. I think we can all learn so much from the the McCarthy family, but first and foremost- No matter what happens, no matter what crap life throws at you, smile….cuz nothing can make love die.

Have a greattastic day

J. Mitchell Ulibarri

P.S. For those of you who don't know, today (March 15th) is S.M.'s birthday. S.M.’s favorite dessert was ice cream. Every year Sam's Fans turns to social media asking friends to post pictures of themself and/or Their families eating ice cream with the hashtag, #icecreamwithSam Please join in the fun, eat ice cream today, share your smile, and post your photo.