Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey

I work with people with intellectual disability pretty much all day every day. By doing so, I've learned that there's a the range of people and personalities among those with ID is no smaller than that in the typical population. However, in the public conscious and most media, people with ID are children, or the object of Important Lessons, or benevolent figureheads. So I found Rachel Simon's memoir about the time she spent with her sister Beth, an adult with ID, a beautiful and nuanced story. Beth is passionate about buses, bull-headed, hates racism, is man-crazy and matter-of-fact. And Rachel pulls no punches, being completely transparent with the reader about Beth's peaks and valleys and about Rachel's own flaws in her ability to show more deal with Beth patiently. I really appreciated Rachel's honesty about her worries, frustrations and impatience with Rachel -- I think it's important to share our dark times.

The book is organized into 12 months, each of which has a chapter about Beth and the bus, a chapter about Rachel's introspections and a chapter about their past. The middle of these was by far the weakest, and felt kind of shoehorned in. Examples include one and a half pages about person-first language. A personal revelation that she should make more friends and becomes the Giver of Wisdom to the bus drivers, over two pages. Beth is really the life of the book. But I think this was overall a touchingly sincere book about a rarely discussed topic. show less

One of the worst kinds of literature, to my mind, are the ones where your main character is a busy person, trying to succeed, doing their best to make the most of their lives, and then they are exposed to wise old sage / intelligent animal / precocious child / disabled veteran. And then they learn the true value of life, and hurrah, hurrah, their minds are forever changed for the better, and they love the world. Urgh, the trite pastiness of it. And then those books end up super popular, and you hear about them everywhere: this will change your life! You just sigh internally. I picked up this book because my mom recommended it, and she usually has good taste, but I look at the blurbs on the cover ("it touched my soul" - Rosie O'Donnell) show more and I read the first twenty pages, and I worry.

But - and thankfully, there's a but - the story doesn't pan out that way. This memoir details the year that Rachel Simon spent with her sister with mild mental retardation around on the buses in her sister's small Pennsylvania city. A few years before the time detailed in the book, Beth, her sister, took up riding around the buses of the town all day, chatting with the drivers and learning all the routes and the timetables, to the degree where she serves as a backup resource for new employees, getting access to the driver's room, etc. Not all of the drivers take to her, but enough do, and she feels as if she's found her place.

Rachel had not been close with her sister for some time, but when Beth reached out to her and invited her to spend a year riding with the buses with her, she decided to take time out of her schedule to take up the offer, alongside her classes and writing. The memoir goes along month by month, for the days she's out there with her sister, with the chapters for each month generally including some riding around with a particular driver on the bus, each with different views on the world, jocular, heavy, contemplative, religious, trying to help Beth, or not; and then also some time off the bus, and then finally about the history of the Simon family and dealing with Beth through the years.

It's actually a very easy read, and the different profiles of the bus drivers, intelligent, thoughtful folk (for the ones that get profiled; Simon notes they're not all like that), add some nice variety. But the most interesting part of it is Simon's coming to grapple with her sister and her life, and what it means for her to be a good sister, and a more open person. Simon turned away from her sister some when she was growing up, but she didn't even really know what it meant for people to have the sort of disability her sister has. She hadn't done the research on it until during the year in question, and she hadn't tried to understand her sister's place in life, why she wanted to ride the buses, the level of self-determination she has.

The overall trend in care for those with mental retardation has been to give them more control over their lives, and the book shows both the plusses and minuses of this system - Beth makes her decision about how to make her life fulfilling, but she makes her own bad decisions, too, and it's hard for her sister to watch. But she does get a lot more respect for her sister, and eventually, the feeling becomes more mutual. Beth's fiercely independent, but they do manage to make it work out between them, so that they each have their place with the other.

I actually did come to enjoy this book after the beginning. It's a more complex story, written clearly and with enough emotion to become invested. I learned much about the toughness of the situation, the complexity of living with someone with a real cognitive disability, but that they're really still a complete, full person. Realizing that is hard even when you're in the situation; even with my mom being a special ed teacher, I have a hard time remembering this sometimes.

Anyway, it is an interesting, informative, and, yes, heart-warming read. But not in that bad way. In a better one. show less

Nonfiction / memoir

Rachel's sister Beth has mental retardation. She lives in a subsidized apartment, has a boyfriend (also with mental retardation), but has no job - except to ride the city's buses all day, every day. Beth remembers drivers' birthdays, their coffee and lunch preferences. The year Rachel spends riding the bus with her sister is a year of personal growth - for Rachel and Beth. The experience opens Rachel's heart and teaches her to risk heartache. Excellent and moving.

This is a memoir that reads like a novel - in a good way. Ms. Simon has interwoven her year riding the bus with her sister, who is mentally disabled, with memories of her past and her family. Both narratives serve to enrich and shed light on each other. This is as much a book about Ms. Simon's own growth as it is about her sister, Beth. And really, isn't that what people are in the end - who they are because of who they spend time with, who they live with and around. A very rewarding read.

Riding the Bus With My Sister by Rachel Simon

Now an adult, Rachel has always been embarrassed by her "mildly retarded" (her words) sister. Almost twins, they laugh at the fact that there is one month of the year when they are the same age. Their mother was a strong force in insisting Beth be treated equally/fairly.

Beth made a wish to Rachel. She rides the buses all day long throughout her Pennsylvania city. She asks Rachel for a year of her time to ride the buses with Beth to see the people and world that she sees.

Rachel overlooks the loud diatribes that Beth rattles throughout the bus so that all can hear. Beth is treated with respect by many of the drivers, a few are tired of her constant talking and the fact that she seems to pick show more particular male bus drivers as possible partners.

As the year ends, Rachel comes away with tremendous sense of wonderment and pride at Beth's ability to make friends, to remember what they like, and each birthday give them a small present. She notices Beth can sometimes let nasty comments wash away, and then, there are times that Beth becomes VERY angry and over and over again talks about revenge.

This is one of my favorite books thus far! show less

Aside from a couple of jerky sentences, I wasn't thrown out of this story. Unlike "Lottery" by Patricia Wood, because the point of view was not the person with "developmental delay", this book managed to tear at my heart strings in a similar way. Rachel Simon shares the thoughts that besiege all of us: am I a good sister? why am I such a bitch sometimes? where is my life going? can I forgive? all the while giving us an entree to the collective wisdom of a group of bus drivers.

For the most part, I found this book to be interesting, if a little slow in places. I worked in the special education world until very recently, with a population that is much more severely affected than Beth was. The young adults that I taught were nonverbal and completely unable to care for themselves or live independently. All through the book, I thought about how the parents of my students would have loved having their child as independent as Beth. I understood a lot of what was happening and what Rachel was learning. I do have some issues with self-advocation, but that is nothing that is geared towards the author or this book. I understand that it is law. It's hard to have laws that apply equally to such a diverse group of show more individuals. I have heard more than one parent share a bad experience that involves the laws Rachel learned about. I would recommend any reader to understand that there are adults out there that you never see, who have to have constant care. They are entitled to a free education, and that is where I was involved. I learned that a lot of people think of those with Downs and those individuals who compete in Special Olympics when they think of self-contained special education. Please have a heart and think of those who have severe and profound intellectual disabilities. Those families need all the love and support that your communities can give them. show less