Final Day of the 31 For 21 Challenge!

This is it folks....the final day of the "31 For 21 Challenge!"

I love that it ends on Halloween night, the night you can be anything in the world you want to be, where the weirdest, most creative costumes are considered the best.  I like the potential that is allowed.  A person that is otherwise stared at, ridiculed...they can be whomever they wish to be, if just for a night.  And yet, I hate that tomorrow it all goes back to the judgement and the ridicule. But remember I am the Mom of a little boy with the extra chromosome, the one that makes him look slightly different from other little boys...the one that makes him learn a little slower, talk much later, if ever...that one.  My little boy that valiantly tackled stairs and crowds, because he really wanted to knock on doors, because that is what he loves to do more than anything.  He was the one trying to keep up with four really excited little girls and doing a pretty good job of it.  Often we were the last ones up and the last ones down...those stairs can be daunting, and the crowds are best left to ebb forward without us, leaving us to move through a little more solo...but on our way out, he was the one that I turned to a candy giver and when I said to him, say thank you...he signed thank you.  Other than the four little girls we had with us...not sure a whole lot were saying thank you.

I learn something every October.  In my quest to bring Awareness to the World about Down syndrome, I am also trying to bring Acceptance.  It's never enough.  As I try to move my son through the trials of his life, I realize that there is a greater world out there that I don't know if we can conquer. I see the research being done about Down syndrome and how it benefits everyone, and then I see the articles and oped pieces of those wishing to eradicate Down syndrome.  And that makes things that are tough a little tougher...someone who thinks that my son is not worth the breath he breathes, that he should have been aborted, that some parents so bitterly regret having their children with Down syndrome.  What a bitter pill to swallow as Bradley's mom.  Knowing that had Fate not given him to us, that he might not be here now.  Sometimes I shudder to think what his life might have been with one of those parents that regret.  Would they have taken care of him, would his health gotten the worst of him?  Would he have been like one of those children in the Russian orphanages that get sent to adult asylums at five years old because no one wants them?  Would he have lived through the early years that were so difficult?  On my worst day, on his worst day, I want him and am grateful he's mine.  The worse the stories, the worse the opinions of people like Richard Dawkins...the more I instinctively want to pull Bradley even closer to me.

I am trying to share Bradley with the world now, in an attempt that he will grow up before your eyes so that you will be familiar with him.  So often there are a lot of changes in appearance, and I think there is value in seeing those changes so that there isn't surprise or fear.  I do this knowing that someone could attack my son's image, a hacker could steal it and use it in a negative way...and yet I still put him out there.  I think a lot about the book that Gene Stallings wrote about his son and how he and his wife dressed their son as cute as possible so that he would be engaging to people, so they would be drawn to him and not away from him.  Although I would never be accused of putting much concern into appearances (I forget to wear make-up pretty much everyday), I see how making sure that Bradley puts his best foot forward so that he ropes you in with his adorableness (yeah, I know, not a word), so you can't resist him.  I don't like the word manipulation, I am trying to indoctrinate you into the world of all things Bradley.  ;-)  I like to share how his life is with his sisters, how they are just everyday sweet girls that live a full life, perhaps even fuller because of their brother.  I want to let the world know that having a child with Down syndrome is okay, even better than okay.  The hand may not be what you expected, but life is life, you play the hand you are dealt the best way you know how.

This time around I was given a Golden moment, a chance to do what I said I would do, I kept a promise to myself.  I was venting Bradley and changing his diaper in the Ladies room at Balboa.  I had him strapped back in his stroller and was cleaning out his tube and syringe.  When I turned around, an older woman, gently on the other side of seventy, came up to the sink in my place and asked if the little boy was mine,  I smiled at her and said yes.  She asked how old, I told her four.  She nodded and said hers was 56.  That she never regretted a day, how he was the best thing to happen to her.  She started to turn away but I stopped her and said: "Thank you.  Because you kept him home and loved him, you paved the way for us.  Bradley has such a better life because of you and your family."  She smiled at me, tentative and a little sad, "Not everyone sees them as a Blessing."

I nodded, "No ma'am they don't."

"It is truly their loss."

"Yes ma'am, it truly is."  This opened the door for another woman to stop and tell me that her husband taught adult Sunday School and he would always tell her that his students with Down syndrome always taught him more than he ever thought them.  What a lovely thing to add.  After that, we stepped out and I met her son, then we were separated by the crowd at the pharmacy, lucky them they were done and I was just getting started....kind of poetic irony that...we're just getting started with Bradley's life too.

It felt right to me, to have that chance to say thank you.  There is such a chasm between the parents of adults with Down syndrome and my age and my Bradley...sometimes, we don't know what to say to each other.  Today we are lucky, we have so much outside help, they had to go it alone and their fights were so much different.  Please don't think the fights today are easy, they are just as difficult and the stakes are just as high.  But so much is easier. There is still a lot of social stigma related to Down syndrome, but I do believe that more people are trying, it's just that the ones that are the loudest are the ones that are trying to end people like Bradley.  There is still a great deal of work to be done.

Acceptance and Awareness.  Basic human desires, they feel like needs; but honestly, I think they are just a wish that when granted makes everyone feel better.  Every person wants a place that feels like they belong and at least somewhere where they feel like they are wanted.  You, definitely me, my girls, my son.  Extra Chromosome or the usual count, the Need, the Desire to fulfill these Needs is one of my biggest goals as their mom.

Thank you for joining me on this month long journey.  Bradley is a pretty awesome little boy with two amazing sisters that are helping to make this family pretty great.  We have an extra something special in our house, and we know we're Blessed by its presence and especially the little boy that brought it with him.

Happy Halloween All!  Happy Friday and Happy Day 31!  Be well and Be Blessed!