Every graduation season, there are seniors who cross the stage, accept their diplomas and move on to their futures without a hint of a hard road traveled. In the snapshot blur of the moment, there is simply not time to stop and tell the story of the graduate who had to struggle from the first breath of life to reach a point that seems so magnificently normal.

When Scituate High School holds its graduation June 13, Sharon and Greg Montecalvo will sit in the audience and perhaps think of the doctor who told them their son was retarded and should be placed in a home. Perhaps they will think of those half-dozen surgeries or those first tough weeks and months of their son’s life when he had no muscle control and the future was so uncertain.

Perhaps, in all the good feelings of obstacles overcome, the Montecalvos will think of those Scituate teachers who went a few extra miles for their son. Greg calls them awesome. They made things possible that might have seemed impossible back when Derek Montecalvo was a kid who didn’t smile because he couldn’t.

Derek will attend Rhode Island College in the fall.

“They seem to help and encourage students with disabilities,” he says.

He wants to live on campus. He wants the full college experience. He thinks his improbable academic career shows one thing:

“Going to college will not only broaden my knowledge. It will show others that a disability is not a bad thing, that there are achievements you can make.”

He and his parents cherish what others take for granted. They mark a long struggle with small, simple steps, and graduation day next month will be a celebration of their refusal to give in to bad odds.

Sharon Montecalvo, a teacher at Feinstein High School in Providence, grew tired of doctors telling her everything that was wrong with her son and all the things that were out of his reach. She wanted a diagnosis.

Derek was 3 when he was diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome. And Sharon Montecalvo started her research. It led her to the Foundation For Prader-Willi Research. The foundation has been a godsend, she says. It lets her be part of the process to find answers and eliminate the challenges her son has faced.

Prader-Willi is a genetic disorder marked by little or no muscle tone or muscle control in the early stages, slow physical development, poor coordination and balance, an often uncontrollable appetite and behavior that often makes it difficult to form close friendships.

“I might say something off topic,” says Derek of those times when he takes an abrupt verbal turn away from the subject at hand.

He did not say anything off topic when we spoke in a classroom at Feinstein High School last week. He is 18, a bright, engaging teenager headed for college who loves science and wants to major in biology.

So he will receive his high school diploma and few people will know of the struggles, physical and emotional. They won’t know of how a family changed its life to give a son the chance to grow despite a ton of bad breaks.

For Derek, there has always been the need to work harder to get the things that come easily to others.

“I had to pay attention more. Other kids would pick up things more easily. I had to take more detailed notes so I could understand.”

The effort sometimes left him physically exhausted. He would fall asleep on the bus home. Then he would get back at it.

And in just 16 days, the payoff comes at Scituate High School.

bkerr@projo.com