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.