Cheryl's Germs

This was a talk given one Sunday in 1993. I asked the high councilman who gave it for a copy. He gave me his copy but asked that if I share it, I not associate his name with it. I have used it on occasion throughout my career although I took out the religious part. I felt compelled to dig it out yesterday.

You generally find one child, sometimes, two, in each class in school that on no one likes – someone that everyone else teases and makes fun of every chance they get. You young people here, stop and think about it: Who might that person be in your school? In our school as I was growing up, it was a girl named Cheryl.

Cheryl was a clever girl who got the best grades in the class and tried hard to fit in. There was nothing wrong with her, but we, her high and mighty classmates, found plenty to criticize, plenty to make fun of.

Cheryl spoke slowly and in a low voice. She had a slight stammer. She was not often cheerful and seemed to have permanent worry etched into her face. Extreme poverty has a way of doing that, even to children. Cheryl’s father worked hard in a fruit orchard, drawing laborer’s wages to carve out a meager living for his family. But the work was seasonal and when the frost got to the pears and cherries, there was even less of it. Consequently, Cheryl’s family likely spent more time on welfare than off it. Cheryl didn’t wear the latest fashions. Most of the time her clothes weren’t even new. She sometimes came to school without having bathed.

All of this gave us what we felt was ample justification to taunt Chreryl, to tease her, to make light of her at every turn, to be cruel to her with no consideration for her feelings.

No one wanted to sit by Cheryl in school. Those whom the teacher required to sit next to her did so grudgingly, with an obvious display of displeasure to the rest of the class. Then they would watch everything Cheryl did, trying to find some fault, and report the news with glee to the rest of the class during recess. If Cheryl did nothing stupid or dumb or gross or disgusting, it was easy to make something up.

No one wanted to eat lunch with Cheryl. She always ate alone. Although several other children in the class were on the federally subsidized school lunch program, the fact that Cheryl got her lunch free somehow made her less of a person.

Cheryl was never asked to participate in extracurricular activities. Our teacher did his best to make sure Cheryl had opportunities to join the chorus, to come out for the track team, to go on the school trip to the museum. But Cheryl didn’t sing well, and we laughed her out of chorus. She was clumsy, and we laughed her off the track team. She asked intelligent questions at the museum and we didn’t understand the answers, so we made the field trip that much harder for her.

As for our other activities, our teachers had nothing to say about weekend slumber parties, camping trips, or the beach excursion we made when we graduated from the sixth grade. Needless to say, Cheryl was not invited, and we made sure to announce loudly that this activity was a lot more fun because “someone” wasn’t there.

Cheryl was always the last one picked for schoolyard games, and only then when the playground supervisor was there to mandate her participation. In fact, about the only game we willingly played that was even remotely connected with Cheryl was a cruel form of tag. In this game, we would run about the schoolyard and when we tagged someone else, we would say, “Cheryl’s germs, no returns.”

This treatment went on for several years. Notwithstanding all our messages to the contrary, Cheryl tried hard to fit in. She figured her smarts would help, especially if she got the best grades in the class. By the time we were in junior high, she had established a consistent straight A average. But we managed to find fault even with that. We grumbled that Cheryl’s good grades were driving up the curve, causing some of us to get C's instead of B’s, or D’s instead of C’s.

By the time we reached the 10th grade, something had changed in Cheryl’s life. She withdrew from those around her. She no longer tried to gain acceptance into our “exclusive” society. She no longer wanted to be part of the group, it seemed, and we were grateful that she had finally seen the light and accepted the role we had created for her. Her grades fell and so did the curve. For that, we almost thanked her – but we didn’t. We didn’t want to give her the impression that she was valued in any way or she might start all over again, trying to fit in once more.

Near the end of our senior year in high school, in the midst of all the graduation plans and the applications to college, Cheryl disappeared. An extensive search failed to locate her. The authorities, with nothing else to go on, theorized that she had run away from home. We figured she had gone out to find a place where no one knew she was Cheryl. And that was just as well. We really didn’t want her participating in our graduation, anyway.

Several months later, while I was home from college for the weekend, Cheryl’s badly decomposed body was discovered in a remote area of the foothills a few miles out of town. She was found curled up in a fetal position; the coroner said there was nothing physically wrong with her and ruled that she had died of exposure. Reflecting back on what we had put her through, it wasn’t hard to imagine Cheryl, like the “Cipher in the Snow,” leaving home one day, curling up in the weeds out of town and waiting for death.

Psychological research tells us that if we send a person the same message often enough and loudly enough and over an extended period of time, the person is conditioned to believe what we tell them as fact, regardless of its veracity.

For nearly 12 years, we told Cheryl every day of her life the same cruel untruth: You’re a nobody, you’re nothing, you’re not important, you don’t count. And finally, she believed us.

What a fine contribution to humanity we made! What a noble gift to the human race! We killed Cheryl. Oh, we didn’t take a gun and shoot her. That would have been much more humane than what we did. Little by little, day by day, we vanquished her spirit a little bit at a time until finally there was nothing left and she went out into the woods and laid down and died. All of us who participated in tormenting that poor girl, we all have blood on our hands. We will have to answer to the Savior for that blood.

Until that time, we live with Cheryl’s death and the part each of us played in it. We seek to vacate our consciences of guilt from time to time, but it doesn’t work.

For me, the particular memory that pains me so is the hurt look on Cheryl’s face the day I tagged her in the schoolyard and then said, “Oh, yeah, that’s right! I can’t give you Cheryl’s germs; you already have them.”

Brothers and sisters, young and old, don’t go through life with memories like this on your conscience. Don’t participate in the humiliation of a brother or sister. Don’t make fun of or belittle or drag down one of the Savior’s own. Keep in mind Christ’s admonition, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,” applies to negative, hurtful actions as much as it does to positive, helpful ones.

Jesus died for Cheryl, just the same as he died for you and me and every other person like Cheryl on this earth. Don’t think for one minute, nay for one second, that your better looks, your superior clothing, or your more fortunate circumstances give you any right to treat someone the way we treated Cheryl. If you do, you will be just as wrong as we were. And so I challenge you to seek out the Cheryl in your school, church or work environment. I challenge you to to make an effort to include him or her in your circle of friends. The worth of souls is great in the eyes of our Heavenly Father and your efforts will be blessed. I think you will be surprised at what the “nerd” can contribute when given the chance. May the Lord bless you as you go forth to show your love and compassion for everyone around you. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

P.H.

Who is the Cheryl in your life? Is there someone you ignore, gossip about, or otherwise send a message of non-worth? What can you do to remedy this situation? How can you help lighten their burden?