Letters of Hope for Elizabeth Bouvia : Class of Handicapped Students Points Out the Joy of Being Alive

Yasu Shido got his first electric wheelchair the other day. The 9-year-old put his withered left hand on the control toggle and promptly crashed into a bookcase.

Yasu, who has cerebral palsy, has very limited control of his arms. Every movement is a struggle; the wheelchair veers from side to side but gets there. He is able to communicate through only a few sounds. But in his classroom at the Perez Special Education Center in Boyle Heights, with a teacher’s help, Yasu can write notes with a special machine.

Last week, Yasu wrote a letter to Elizabeth Bouvia, the 28-year-old cerebral palsy quadriplegic who wants to die. He worked more than an hour to write the letter, helped by teacher Ruth Buell and teacher’s aide Enedina Orozco.

Dear Elizabeth

I want you to live and try sushi. Miguel will take you.

An electric wheel chair is good. You can go where you want.

Love, Yasu

Buell told her orthopedically handicapped students about Elizabeth Bouvia as a current events lesson--about how she suffers from cerebral palsy and arthritis, and she doesn’t want to be fed by doctors and nurses.

“She wants to starve herself,” Buell tells her class. “Is that something anyone in this room would ever do?”

“NOOOOOOOO!”

As a class assignment, Buell had her students write letters to Bouvia.

The students’ letters and artwork are compiled in a book Buell plans to mail to Bouvia, now at High Desert Hospital in Lancaster, who has been fighting a legal battle over her right to reject extraordinary medical treatment to prolong her life. Buell said she considered asking Bouvia to visit her class and talk with her students, but decided that was presumptuous. “I can’t know the pain she feels.”

Only Yasu has trouble talking about his feelings in this classroom. The other children, ages 8, 9 and 10, said they couldn’t understand why anyone would want to die when life is so good and fun.

The students talked about what made life good. On the chalkboard Buell listed a few reasons that her students gave for living: love, the sun, babies’ smiles, Top Ramen noodles, chicken, music, friends, floating in a pool, peace and quiet, dinosaurs.

As a class assignment, Buell had her students write letters to Bouvia.

Dear Elizabeth, I would like for you to live because it is fun hearing music.

And it is fun helping people.

Love, Merilyn

Musical notes decorate Merilyn Nunez’s letter. She is a tiny, grinning pixie in a wheelchair. She was born very premature, and she just seemed to stop growing. Her condition mystifies doctors, Buell says.

It is a happy classroom. The children joke, sing songs and get into trouble. A few play two-finger melodies on the piano.

Some, like Yasu and Merilyn, were born with their maladies. Tania Ortiz suffered meningitis in infancy and was left paralyzed from the waist down. Dantell Weston, who has cerebral palsy, walks awkwardly and must wear a helmet on the playground.

There is also Miguel Haro, who is handsome and bright and seems perfectly healthy. When Buell asked Yasu who would take Elizabeth out to eat sushi, he gestured toward Miguel. But of all the children in this classroom, Miguel’s life is perhaps the most precarious. A serious heart condition makes every day fragile and often painful.

Dear Elizabeth,

I hope you live your life. There’s so much to live for. I had pain last week but now I feel better. and I hope you feel better.

Love, Miguel Haro

P.S. you can go to museums to see dinosaurs and art .

Some of these students remember a time, not long ago, when they were in good health. Alex Gomez and David Martinez, a pair of jokers, were both seriously injured in car accidents. They laugh and talk excitedly--boasting, really--when they talk about what happened. After they tell their story, Dantell announces that he was run over by a car, too. He is a bit of a storyteller, Buell explains.

Jorge Godinez was in fine health until last summer. Somehow, he got in the way of violence on his neighborhood streets and became a victim of the not uncommon phenomenon, “the drive-by shooting.” The school’s principal checks Jorge’s health record and learns that the bullet is still lodged in the boy’s brain.

Jorge is quieter than his classmates. He is “slower,” Buell says, because of the shooting. Sometimes, he uses it as an excuse.

“Whenever he forgets his homework,” Buell says, grinning at Jorge’s wiles, “he tells me it’s because he got shot.”

Dear Elizabeth

I don’t want you to die. I want you to live. There are many things that are good. I like hamburgers, floating in a pool, reading books and listening to stories.

I like you.

Love, Jorge