Michael

Once upon a time, There’s this chubby and bubbly little boy named Michael. When he was a little over a year old, he was diagnosed to be in the Autism spectrum. He would not turn his head to respond to his name when called. His grandmother even thought of him to be deaf. He had fleeting eye-contact. He would engage to play all by himself to no end, from the time he wakes until his energy simply wears off at night. He loved Barney, Sesame Street, Blues Clues, Dora, Dino Dan, Hi-5 and videos of nursery rhymes and songs. He danced with the tunes and even memorized the songs and sang with all his heart’s delight at the top of his voice! We were relieved he’s not deaf!

It was a long journey to Raya for our Michael – he had 2-3 hours daily home-based therapies, play & arts classes at Gymboree, then went to MI’s Child’s Place (SY2006-2007), to Community of Learners and NEST Pre-school (SY 2007-2008) – because “He wasn’t ready yet for a classroom setting,” Teacher Ruth said with a frown two successive assessments in 2006 and 2007. Until one day in January 2008, 4-year old Michael went to Raya, still located along Scout Limbaga St., for his 3rd assessment to be finally accepted in their Pre-school program for SY 2008-2009. And, we did our own happy dance in jubilation!

Came June 2008, every day since then, he would never miss a day to be in Raya! He’d frown each time he goes to school late for class! He always look forward to Mondays after weekends; days back to school after holidays; and even after long summer breaks just to be back to Raya School! Michael is sociable and loves sharing random stories. He genuinely adores everybody at school even calls each one by name, including the newcomers at the pre-school level and making sure everyone is having a good day. He learned to love math and science together with his classmates at Raya. He enjoys doing experiments in science. And, eventually appreciated AP and Filipino. PE, music and arts are a given delightful time for him. All these, we are grateful to Raya community and to all his teachers who embraced Michael with genuine love and care. 

A big part of his young life is appreciating and creating art. He has shown great interest in art and constantly devotes his afternoons of every weekend for art training and practice. Each Michael, as we call his works - paintings, drawings and sculptures – in a wide variety of subjects and themes carry with it spontaneous and unadulterated strokes, his thoughts, emotions and the pureness of his heart.

Michael is fond of looking at his old photos banked in photo albums of our old mobile phones. He’d point to each frozen memory of baby Jayda, baby Elias, baby Aretha, baby Melo, baby Viggo, baby Clara, baby Gabby Girl, and others and himself as baby Michael. He refers to himself now as the Kuya Michael of all as he proudly says, “I am now the tallest!” because he now towers at 5’7”. But of course, he’s still everyone’s “baby” Kuya Michael. 

Like the way he fervently sings Raya School’s Song, Michael solemnly prays in every morning he wakes, with eyes closed and hands clasped near his chest, offering his “mental capacities and capabilities and emotions” to glorify Father God and be worthy of His love... And, ends his day before bed, grateful in prayers for the blessings that came his way during the day.