Memory from "I Feel Pretty"

Here is my special experience of the song we heard in class today from West Side Story: I Feel Pretty.

It was 1966 and I was 8 years old. My father and some of his friends had volunteered at a summer camp for disabled children in New Jersey, making repairs on buildings and donating equipment. The camp said 'thank you' by inviting the families of the volunteers to the camp for the day for a picnic and talent show.

We ate hamburgers and corn on the cob, drank lemonade and sat down to watch the talent show which was held on an outdoor stage. All the children were severely disabled, mostly in wheelchairs with cerebral palsy, spina-bifida, and muscular dystrophy. I had never really seen brain-injured or wheelchair-bound children before, and I was at once uncomfortable and full of compassion.

The show consisted of camp counselors singing and wheeling the kids around the stage in simple choreography. The song that stands out to me now so clearly after all these years was "I Feel Pretty." This was a girls-only number with about 6 severely disabled girls who could barely sit up, some drooling, but some smiling, dressed with ribbons in their hair, holding brushes and mirrors. The PA system played I Feel Pretty from the soundtrack album, and the counselors danced with those girls-- those girls whom the world would never call "pretty"-- making them all feel beautiful.

If you saw a tear in my eye today, now you know why. The Lord Jesus has a special place in his heart for children-- as well as the disabled. May we all grow in kindness.