Spirit Matters: Gus Walz teaches the world a lesson in humanity

Gus Walz showed the world this week what it means to live with embodied heart.

Gus, the 17-year-old son of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, couldn’t contain his excitement when his father spoke at the Democratic National Convention, looking his wife Gwen, his daughter Hope and Gus in the eyes and telling them they are “his entire world.”

With happy tears in his eyes and on his face, Gus, who happens to have a nonverbal learning disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and an anxiety disorder, leaped out of his chair and proudly pointed at his dad, shouting, “That’s my dad!” to the crowd around him.

I didn’t watch the convention that night, but when I hopped on my social media feed the following day and saw pictures of the moment, I got goosebumps and my eyes began to tear up.

This is what living real looks like: where a young man joyfully and unequivocally expresses the love between a father and son with nothing but a pure heart and no concern about how it appears to others.

I’ve been fortunate to meet plenty of “Guses” in my life.

When I worked at the Easter Seals’ Timber Pointe Outdoor Center, I was blessed to interact with folks with all types of physical and developmental disabilities. These disabilities ranged from mild to profound and were reflected in the level of independence the campers were able to live with in their daily lives.

I learned early on that these children and adults were the teachers and I was the student.

They showed me over and over again what it means to live with your heart on your sleeve. They did not waste time with social mores; they exuberantly expressed their affection for life and the happiness they felt to be seeing their friends and living life at camp for the week.

I am not going to lie. The first week of camp my first year was for adults with physical disabilities, and when those of us in the office staff walked down to the dining hall that week for lunch, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw: a room full of fully grown humans confined to wheelchairs being spoon fed by young, college-age counselors.

It was jarring. So jarring that I had to force myself to not look away.

Because it wasn’t what I was used to, having just left my job at a major insurance company, where I had worked for eight years. I would come to know differences between camp life and corporate life were vast, and this was an example.

In the corporate world, everyday life often is about wearing a mask just to survive. In the camp world, everyday life is about taking off those masks and living joyfully from the wild soul that animates us.

At camp, everyone was free to be real.

Even in those with more profound disabilities who needed one-to-one care, the stuff that makes us fully human – heart and soul – was alive and well. Sometimes you just have to look a little deeper to see that spark. And that’s not on them, it’s on us.

Finally, perhaps the most important lesson of all I learned during my time at TPOC was that all of us, every single one of us, has some kind of “disability.” Most of us don’t have the kind that can be defined by a medical textbook, but if we do some real soul searching, we will see there is something that keeps us from being fully engaged with other people.

And all too often, our disabilities – bullying, insensitivity, selfishness, greed, fear, insecurity, pride, etc. – are far more pervasive and detrimental than other disabilities because our disabilities have a hurtful, rippling effect on the world around us.

In living unapologetically and unashamedly from his heart, Gus Walz showed the world that whatever our so-called “weaknesses” might be, showing our love and affection for one another is what being real is all about.

And that is what will carry us forward now and in every age to come.

SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column by Jerrilyn Zavada Novak that examines experiences common to the human spirit. Contact her at jzblue33@yahoo.com.