Matthew Andreas Wulf’s Stories Matter Speech, July 20, 2018

With grateful excitement I am pleased to be a guest speaker for DDR’S Stories Matter.  The stories of each one in the special needs community matters.  Often they are filled with impossible challenges, heroic determination, and victories of love’s miracles deserving of the Purple Heart.  Wounded in non-functioning bodies, lonely, and often rejected, they quietly serve with sensitive, compassionate loyal hearts, relentlessly teaching life’s most important lessons.

My life has its own unique statement.  Given only six months to live, life was always ending tomorrow, and thankfully, tomorrow never came.  To have hope is a gift. To have a future is a luxury.   Having a short life demands no moments are wasted on things that don’t matter.  Every word spoken, every word written, every song sung is the miracle of being connected to each other, to influence each other with our gifts of uniqueness.

Often painfully slow at first, my progress was related to my relationships.  My parents discovered in third grade I could read and had an interest in music.  Mom and Dad believed I could do all I set my heart on, regardless of impairments or life span.  They educated me with private schooling, not leaving one moment of my life to chance.   My family took me everywhere; to the stars in the planetarium, to the mountain tops, to aquariums under the seas, to the mining caverns below, to ocean’s shores, and to the countries of Europe and States of America.  My brothers and sister worked to support my development.  My sister became my good friend and shared my music interests, taking me to symphony concerts indoors and outdoors, encouraging me to compose music. Itinerate teachers from the Center for Literacy and Disabilities Studies taught my parents to work with my deaf-blindness and encouraged me to save my writings for a book. Much of my progress was useful in training Speech and Language Pathologists around the world.  My life’s story had a way of speaking on its own.  After graduating from high school with honors in 2016, I was accepted to college.

College has a way of defining one’s natural gifts.  According to Myers and Briggs Personality Type my existence is distinguished as “rare” with complexity of character and unusual range and depth of talent.  Blessed with an uncommon combination of vision and practicality, I take on responsibilities of various causes I am drawn to. As a third grader, I was determined to help my country by bringing good teachers to North Carolina, so I wrote Mrs. Laura Bush …and she called me.  When my friend’s baby sister could not leave the NICU until she could maintain her body temperature, I bought her a blanket so she could go home.  When the tornados hit Joppa, I donated the $20.00 my grandmother had sent me for my birthday to help in the relief efforts.  In advocating for Rare Disease Day, I wrote to the President of the United States suggesting certain healthcare reforms based on my personal experiences, …and he wrote back with thanks.  An introvert at heart, my activist humanitarian involvement draws me into the lives of other people, contributing with the gifts of my empathic abilities. While college labeled me as a “Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa” rolled into one, my goal is to use my self-expression in writing skills and music creativity to benefit the lives of those with “special needs.”

It is not easy to function in this world with restricting disabilities that erode one’s value. What may we in the special needs community have to contribute in the face of perpetual need and imperfect work? I remember an elementary school physical therapist’s lists of things I couldn’t do, but I also remember my mom’s list of my abilities, and her expectations.  It was my mom who did what my speech therapist could not, because she knew the longing of my heart. With my dad I was able…able to climb mountains.  With my sister the music trapped in my head came out in music scores.  To my family my life had value and purpose equal to anyone’s.  My own nation’s Declaration of Independence states that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  Even though flawed and often unattractive on the outside, the impacting value we leave on society comes from what is on the inside, from the struggle, from patience, from hope.  The strength of weakness is the change agent of the heart.  We will not usually be building infrastructures, engineering drones or robotics, or designing space stations.  By our mere existence we infuse society with an essence of unconditional love, forgiveness, friendship, humility, and faith. We do not leave our footprint in the melting snows of winter or in the shifting sands of the earth, but our footprint is engraved on the everlasting future.

Much of what I do is funneled through our non-profit, AMG4D, the Adam and Matthew Group for Dads and Families.  It is about pulling together to achieve the greatest success in challenging circumstances. It is about the special needs children becoming their very best, the best in health, the best in aptitudes.  It is about encouragement through sharing a vision.  It is about finding purpose and faith that may not fit into words. My book and music, are available through the AMG4D Foundation.  If you feel moved by the pulse of my passions, please listen to my music CD, Songs of My Music.  If you are curious about my life story, my transformation from childhood to adulthood please read my book, Awake Not the Hungry.   Reviews call it “a must read,” “inspirational,” “uplifting,” “amazing,” “encouraging,” and “gifted.”  I call it sharing the mystery of the Purple Heart.

In closing, I want to read an excerpt from Awake Not the Hungry, my “Personal Essay.”  My good friend Shawn Bruggeling will be my voice.  After Shawn’s reading, “The Last Autumn” from my CD will play.  The Last Autumn reflects the beauty of the falling leaves, the dancing breezes, and the joy in my heart.   It is about the warmth of love and sharing thoughts.  It is about peace in God‘s sure promises.