Questions and Misconceptions

I wonder when we are growing up when do we lose that ability to see past what makes people different? I think some people never lose it and others never have it.
I think back to high school art class. I was different in high school...I had issues but then again what kid growing up doesn't. I had friends that crossed all the groups, I knew jocks, nerds, geeks, wastoids, punks, cowboys...all of them. I never had a problem talking to anyone, in fact some people might say I talked too much. My last year was the toughest I think, I had gone thru some pretty bad shakeups and really had a bleak outlook. It was then that I decided to take an art class...I figured easy "A" and would be no work. I was wrong on both counts. It was one of the classes I did the most work in and it was not easy...fun but not easy at all.
Anyway in this class I met a friend named John..John had cerebral palsy and had been confined to a wheel chair his whole life. He was one of the best artists I probably have ever met. He was funny, kind, caring, talented and never ever said anything bad about anyone. We used to talk girls, movies, trade dirty jokes...things all teen boys do. I remember I was having a hard time with a particular project and he helped even though he had a ton of things he had to do himself. That was just the kind of guy he was, in a way it was because of him that when I moved and went to college I enrolled in the art department, always tyring new things visual arts, art with light, different styles of painting, drawing, trying sculpture even though never doing that before. I found I had a passion for it, in fact in my first two years I was in 2 private gallery shows, and in three invitational ones at school. I had found something I loved by accident. but those are always the best accidents in life. You stumble across something you never would have thought of and find not only do you have the passion for it but you have the talent. And I never would have found this if not for that one friend.
John was a good guy and he was ostracized by some because of his disability..he would joke that he was excluding them because they didn't have the guts to hang like he did. He moved past his disability and unlocked the art that went thru his head and tried to give it to the world. I want to thank him for that, but I won't. Not because I don't want to but because I can't.
John died a few years ago, he didn't get to have the family most of us have set out to build. He cared and he loved and like any other guy we knew would try to be the first to point out the hot girl walking by in the hall. To a lot of people who saw him he was someone limited and could not do half of what we could, but me I saw past that and he was limitless, and realise even though he only lived half as long as we did, he lived more life than most of us ever will.