In the book, The Boy and His Horse, written by C. S. Lewis, there is a pool of water. Supposedly, if you looked into the pool, it would show you what has happened in the past. This week something occurred that made me feel like I was looking into this pool.

I was asked to visit a boy who has a disability similar to mine. Talking to him I felt like I was in a time warp—like I was looking at a reflection of myself when I was this young boy’s age. It was a scary time in my life. I had just been discharged from a hospital after a stay of more than a year and I was in Comfort House waiting to die.

The hospital stay had been extremely difficult. For months I was on a ventilator and had a tube down my throat. I grew so tired and discouraged that I just wanted my life to be over.

Even having been through this experience, the me I saw in the mirror and the boy with the disability that I visited both had an innocence and quiet warmth. We had not yet developed guiles, and we were reserved in a sweet way. I wouldn’t, however, describe it as shyness. For me, at least, it was that I was raised to be quiet, to be civil, almost in the formal sense of “Children should be seen and not heard.”

I retained this quiet reflective demeanor for another five years--until the summer after my sophomore year at McAllen High School when I went to the Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session sponsored by the National Hispanic Institute. During the week-long session held in the Texas Capitol building in Austin, I broke out of my shell in a dramatic way. I was elected governor which meant I was the leader of the 220 other delegates.

As governor the power I had was the power to inspire. And what I tried to do was to inspire the delegates to “reach for the stars.” For one week, it was a glorious feeling to throw all caution to the wind in the effort to create an ideal world no matter what the cost.  

Last week I told you about Carlos, the ten-year-old from a violent and scary world who comes to see me to talk and play games. This week, it’s my new friend—the boy in a wheelchair with the sweet innocent look. I don’t know why these two ten-year-olds are crossing my path right now.  But, I do reflect on their appearance at this particular time, and I think about their future.

What I do know is that life will happen to them. Some bad things will happen. Some good things will happen. I hope neither one has to ever spend a year in the hospital. And I hope both of them will have an experience as exhilarating as what I felt the week I was governor of the LDZ Legislative Session.

As children, we start out innocent and dormant. We have potential. We are like stars. Some of us will grow to be very old. Some of us will die young.  But, what matters is that we keep shining all the days of our lives.

Victor Alvarez is a sophomore at the University of Texas-Pan American. You can visit his Web site at www.victoralvarezweb.com or e-mail him at doogleef2@yahoo.com.