Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Stunningly Beautiful: Best Article on Slate Ever

Loving a Child on the Fringe

Thanks to John Podhoretz for Tweeting it and letting people know about it.

Just beautiful.

"Wherever she goes, she brings people together—imperiously gesturing to cantankerous couples to sit down together and lifting their palms onto each others’ thighs, reconciling warring classmates by joining their hands, and charming child-leery adults with flirty smiles and studious imitations of their idiosyncrasies. Her gifts are the opposite of my own: Where I am shy, she is bold; where I am good with (known) words, she is good with drama, dance, and music; where I am frightened of groups, she loves them, and the children in her preschool compete hard to sit by her side at lunchtime as the nurses in her hospital petitioned to be assigned to her room."

"Am I “cheerily generalizing” as Solomon says of other Down syndrome parents, “from a few accomplishments” of my child? Perhaps I am....Each of us has the ability to give only a little bit of joy to those around us. I would wager Eurydice gives as much as any person alive."

"There are reasons to think the future could be harder—not easier—than the present. But while certain experts (repeatedly quoted by Solomon) have suggested that this leads to “chronic sadness” in parents of children with Down syndrome, I find it leads to “chronic carpe diem”—a chronic desire to seize the day and wring the best possible from every moment—and from myself."

G-d bless you Cristina Nehring and your beautiful daughter Eurydice.

May you both live long, happy, healthy lives.

Carpe Diem indeed.