I don’t host guest posters very often, but when I received this email from a local woman named Karen a few weeks ago, I asked if I could post it in honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Month.
(Did you even know it was DS Awareness Month? Yes, it gets so very much coverage.)
Please welcome Karen and give her some “comment love,” as they say. 🙂
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ZAPPPPPP!
Like a lightning bolt God injects the races of humanity with a “Special Race:” Down Syndrome.
Leaping over all boundary lines comes God’s Gifts of Love and Simplicity. These Sweet, Simple, Joyful people come to us just wanting to love us and help us. To be accepted and acknowledged.
My sister Peggy came to us in 1956. At that time there was a decision whether to raise her with the rest of us and Thanks Be to God, my parents decided to keep her at home.
Because of her I learned that all of life is not generic, sterile, pretty, or easy. I learned to deal with the unusualities of people. I learned patience and a sense of humor. I learned that love comes unexpectedly and exuberantly.
My sister Peggy had an active role in our family. She taught my children how to make their letters and numbers while they still knew less than she did. She ran to greet us whenever we visited. She visited us once and helped our church sacristan go through every one of eight hundred (800) loose-leaf hymnals noting which pages needed to be replaced. Who else would have that kind of patience for tedium?
Peggy worked and volunteered in the community. She excelled in latch hook rugs, taking a first place ribbon at the county fair over the home ec teacher! She excelled in Special Olympics and carried her weekly bowling score in her pocket until next week brought a new score.
She kept a notebook of birthdays, including the Bishop of the Diocese of Jefferson City. She never knew a stranger, striking up conversations wherever she went, and evoking fond kindness from everyone who encountered her. Doing something kind for Peggy made people feel good about themselves.
Our family looks on Down Syndrome as a Blessing and a call to Growth, and never, never as a Curse or something to be Avoided or Aborted.
God only gives us as much as we can handle.
NOTE: Peggy was born in 1956 and died with Alzheimer’s in 2004 at the age 47. Her Alzheimer’s set on about the age of 43. Because my father was in the Army-Air Force and earned a spot in the national cemetery, Peggy is buried there with Daddy, awaiting Mother.
6 Responses
Lovely guest post. Thank-you.
This is so sweet. I have a friend who absolutly loves working with special needs children and adults, who says that she firmly believe God gives us children with Down Syndrome because they are the only people who can love fully without reserve. The world was definitely blessed by Peggy!
Just beautiful!!! I was meant to see this today! I am going to be completely honest. I have always *struggled* w/the idea of Downs Syndrome: with questions like “are they suffering? Or are we really following God’s plan when these children are born to us? Like, when we bear children w/disabilities is that God telling us we were not supposed to get pregnant at that time? And taking care of these children is our *cross*?? But then I watched a program last night on PBS(surprisingly) that allowed me to see the incredible gift these children are *meant* to bring to us. I have four children who were not born w/downs syndrome and they are gifts as well. But now I see there is no need to fear downs syndrome but instead embrace it; embrace these children/adults. A poem was read at the end of the program which brought me to tears and really *sealed the deal* for me. I think it was called “Clowns of/for God” and it was all about the beauty of downs syndrome and how people w/ds have been blessed specially by God. How there face is the face of Christ. A gift!
I hope you’ll come back next week, because I have a reflection on DS in the works…it’s not very often that a blog post gets revised multiple times like an essay for submission. Plus, the pictures we got of Julianna this weekend are just simply…to…die..for. 🙂
Inspiring story-as a Pediatric Nurse I get to see “These Sweet, Simple, Joyful People” while they are relatively little. It is great to hear about your sister and all she contributed in her life. Thank you for sharing with us!
You have such wonderful memories of your sister and a lifetime of understanding to bring the love your sister inspired to others. God always has His reasons for sending a special needs child to a particular family. We can’t always see His plan, but we don’t really need to. We just need to love.