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they are adults, having to make adult choices and live in an adult world. I have known these
friends to lose and gain jobs, to volunteer, to be entranced by art, music and dance. Some
are passionate about sport, about their pets, about cooking, walking, the theatre, nature. All
the people I have met exhibit compassion far more readily that criticism, and it seems as if
almost all have a whacky sense of humor and would rather laugh at minor misfortune than
to be weighed down by it. But all these insights were to come over time, and on that first
day, I wasn't sure what I had let myself in for.
As I tiptoed into the room feeling bewildered, there was Heather. She was dressed very styl-
ishly, had bright eyes and an open smile. After a while, noticing my accent, she asked me If
I came from England. I was bowled away! It had not occurred to me before that people with
developmental disabilities travel. It turns out that Heather had not only been to England,
she had lived there and made several visits after her return to the United States. Heather
had explored England and Scotland and had even been to Robin Hood's Bay—our destin-
ation that day and the end of the walk. I'm not sure if she expected to meet Robin Hood
there, but she didn't seem disappointed as she remembered the twisting twining streets of
the little fishing town. Heather and I and later her parents became friends. They invited
me over to their house for tea and British nostalgia. I enjoyed finding British delights for
Heather. Almost all the time I have known her, Heather has suffered from ovarian cancer.
Sometimes when I have visited her, she has been in bed, looking like a fairy princess in
a long white gown. Sometimes her hair is lush and curly, sometimes she has little hair at
all, and sometimes she has white hair, but beneath it all, unfailingly, Heather can find her
beaming, uncomplicated smile. I had promised her I would think about her on the North
York Moors-it wasn't difficult, the moors were almost as radiant as she.
So we walked at a very leisurely pace across the moors, enjoying the wide views that gradu-
ally revealed the soaring ruins of Whitby Abbey and then, tantalizingly, the sea!
Viewed either from the sea or at a considerable distance across the moors, Whitby Abbey
must have been spectacular in its day. It dominates the cliff top reaching heavenwards. The
ruins are of the second abbey on the site. The first was constructed in the seventh cen-
tury after the King of Northumbria converted to Christianity. He appointed Hilda as abbess
of the double monastery, which separately housed both monks and nuns in Celtic fashion,
after the traditions established on the Scottish island of Iona. Hilda seems to have been
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