When Leta was 2 years old she was invited to join a playgroup in Chestnut Hill. One other little girl, 6 months younger, named Rosemary was also in that playgroup. Since then, our families have grown close and our kids have grown up together. While Leta has not physically grown-up, she has been a part of Rosemary’s entire childhood. Rosemary, now 15, smart, and beautiful has recently developed an interest in working with special needs kids when she gets older. Home from school for the summer, she asked if she could work with Leta as a one-to-one for a few days. I was thrilled to have some help, and Leta was thrilled to have Rosemary’s company. Where once, the contrast in physical size and mental development between Leta and Rosemary was not obvious, now it is inescapable and hard to ignore. Rosemary is a young lady and Leta still looks like she is 4 years old. But I noticed something new about Leta in the time she spent with Rosemary. Despite Leta’s obvious mental and physical retardation, my 15 year old was dying to be treated like a teenager. With Rosemary, she was suddenly conscious of her looks, and kept wanting to brush her hair. With Rosemary, she wanted to show off that she knew how to drive and insisted on taking my car keys and sitting in the drivers seat, and with Rosemary she was just happy to “hang out” like a normal teenager would do with their good friends. Rosemary said two endearing things to me in our week together. “Leta is my oldest friend” and “I don’t even think of Leta as having special needs, she is more like an unruly toddler.” Rosemary did an amazing job helping me take care of Leta. Rosemary possesses the unique qualities of having endless patience, being non-judgmental and having an extraordinary sense of humor about Leta and her unusual antics.

Rosemary wrote a short essay about lunchtime with Leta that I asked if I could publish on my blog:

A Meal with Leta Moseley:

Like any job, to eat with Leta you have to have a certain skill set. You have to be a fast eater, ok with mess, very patient, have a good stomach, a good sense of humor, and be ready to fight for the food you want to eat. These are all skills that I had assumed I possessed. That is until I had a meal with Leta.
Anyone who knows Leta knows she loves to eat, and will eat anything. Her favorite food is soup, but for this particular meal we were having wraps.
It started out normally. Lainey called us in for lunch and Leta and I sat down. Right form the start the wrap was opened and then dissected. Any food that Leta did not want was thrown at me. As her sister, Ava, says, “Leta would be amazing at football. She has great aim and an even better arm.” I had the privilege of witnessing this first-hand, when all of Leta’s rejected food landed in my lap. Moving on, Leta decided the wrap needed ketchup; not a big surprise since that is Leta’s favorite condiment. Leta uses ketchup the way most people use salt and pepper. But unlike most, she puts the ketchup in her milk then proceeds to mix it together as if making Nesquick. Through out all this chaos I was able to finish most of my wrap. Unfortunately, when the ketchup-milk was all mixed, she decided that she wanted my wrap too. She quickly grabbed it and when she was done, she gave me back the parts she didn’t want. The meal ended with a splash. Leta, forever the drama queen, decided that it would be a good idea to pour her ketchup-milk experiment all over the table. Making our already extraordinary meal, unforgettable.

Eating with Leta is always entertaining. If you ever get the chance I highly recommend it. Since then, I have had many meals with Leta, each as hectic as the last.
-Rosemary Osborne