Impaired

                   
    A while back, I wrote poems. I have no illusions that what I wrote was good poetry. I just wrote as a way to express and to record the way I was feeling. Poetry did for me then what this blog does for me now. They both give me that "aaahhhh" feeling. Like when you have a little pus pocket of infection somewhere and the fullness of it causes that pressure-pain. For awhile you live with it, cause you fear the cure more than you fear the pain. But the moment you stick a needle in it and some of the pain is relieved, you say "aaaahhhh". Oh, there's still stuff left in there, and there's still healing to do, but just starting the process lets off some of that pressure.
    When you read this blog, I hope you gain insight for your own life, but my primary goal is of selfish intent; to express and record my observations of my life.

                              IMPAIRED

          She entered my life a broken treasure;

          My dreams for a child exchanged for the nightmare of a diagnosis.

          The doctor’s words cursed her life.

          Sentenced her to be less than whole.

          But the ‘who she is’ becomes larger than the ‘what I fear’,

          And the verdict fades ‘til I forget.

          I find it’s we, who are impaired,

          For lack of sight, we miss her gift.                                                                   Summer, 2006 - 15 years old

                   Annemarieke     

                                     

   When Emily was born, I had only a few pre-conceived notions of what Down Syndrome would mean to our child, to our family, and it wasn't pleasant.  All I knew was that kids with DS were kept in a separate class in our school and grew up to be adults that either lived in nursing homes or with their elderly parents.  I had seen an man with DS, maybe 40 years old, in Wal-Mart, his mother still holding his hand as she shopped. 
   Those images scared the **** out of me.  But she was flesh of my flesh and I had carried her next to my heart for 9 months, and the love that came from that gave me the willingness to sacrifice my life for her.
   Who she became surpassed all those pre-conceived ideas.  Oh, sure, she had cognitive delays, but she was smart in people skills.  She was part of a Girl Scout troop for 7 years, played on a summer ball team, went to a week-long camp 3 years in a row.  Through a job program at school, she worked at Ryan's restraunt. Although she had bilateral moderate to severe hearing loss, she was bilangual. The spoken language she heard was garbled, but she understood what she heard.  She could speak, but it came out of her mouth, just like it went in her ears - garbled. We were unable to understand most of what she said, so to communicate we used sign language.  Anyone who took enought time to let her, she blessed.  There will be lots of stories about that in futures entries.
   The truth of it all is that while I had thought it would be a sacrifice to mother Emily, it was quite the opposite. I learned more from her than I taught her; received more from her than I gave her.  Having Emily made me better.