Miracles in the Making

“It’s a three-hankie event.” I told my husband Tripp the night before Jonathan’s graduation. Maybe I underestimated. Based on my performance the next day, I’m fairly confident that if there were an Olympic commencement crybabies event, I’d capture the gold for my home town.

From the first strains of the processional — Kermit the Frog singing “Why Are There So Many Songs About Rainbows?” — my composure was kaput. The dozen or so Special Ed Preschool graduates appeared in tassel-swinging caps to the oohs and ahs of parents and friends, then bounced, shuffled — or were coaxed and prodded — down the aisle to their places of honor. There were no wheelchairs this year, but that didn’t take away the overwhelming sense of watching Miracles in the Making.

I couldn’t look at the other parents. I would have needed a periscope, I was so awash in tears and feelings. And that in itself is a miracle. I never was the mushy sort before I had Jonathan.

But that’s what life with Jonathan has been all about. Having a child with Down syndrome has brought out the human in me. He’s revealed to me these incredible secrets hidden from me for 44 years: That life is about more than intelligence or appearance. That the greatest gifts are not the kind you can measure or quantify. That until our hearts are stretched and tenderized, there are truths we’ll never know.

I guess that’s the saddest part for me of knowing that nine out of 10 prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome babies perish in abortion. To think anyone would see a child like Jonathan as a tragedy is almost beyond my comprehension. Yet our culture is schizophrenic where these children are concerned: mandating that they be treated with dignity in schools and workplaces while still encouraging us to get rid of them before they are born.

I understand the shock and grief parents feel on getting the “bad news.” I only wish I could sit beside them and hold their hands and tell them how much Jonathan has meant to me. Like the line from Elton John’s “Your Song”: “I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind that I’m putting down in words/How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”

You see, at first I thought that having a child with special needs was all about helping him reach his potential. But it hasn’t been that way at all. It’s really been about me reaching mine.

This has been brought home to me even more since our move to Petaluma. Entering a very small and closeknit rural school district with a child slated for full inclusion in Kindergarten, I was painfully aware of the financial burden — not to mention the planning and logistical concerns — I was bringing to Liberty School.

How would other kindergarten parents feel about Jonathan being in their child’s class? Would they see it as a drag? Would they fume because his special needs might detract from their children’s school experience? My anxiety loomed like a trap waiting to catch me in the dark.

And then there was light — a revelation. For the first time I truly understood why we are making it possible for special needs kids to be educated with their “normal” peers. Yes, looking at dollars and cents and hours and minutes, a lot of people judge full inclusion at best an intrusion, at worst a waste.

But that’s not what it’s all about.

Because Jonny and his graduating friends are not just taking from their classmates and teachers, their families, their communities, nor even from society at large. They each have something unique to offer, something that will enrich the lives of everyone who knows them.

Suddenly I had this confidence in my son. I knew beyond a doubt that Jonathan’s kindergarten class would be the better because he was part of it.

And I was reminded of an event described in the Bible: Cynics presented a blind man to Jesus and asked him who had sinned, the man or his parents, that he had been born blind. Jesus answered that neither had sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. (John 9:1-3 NIV)

I suppose most people have understood that to mean that the work of God would be displayed when the blind man was enabled to see. I disagree. After all, Jesus didn’t say the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s healing. He said it was displayed “in his life.”

That blind man was once a baby and a growing boy. For years his needs had an impact on his family, his friends, his teachers, his community. Surely the work of God was being revealed each day in the growing compassion and wisdom in those who might otherwise have remained stuck in their own superficiality and self-centeredness.

Is it worth the extra time, effort, and money to educate special needs kids? I think of another thought-provoking verse: Those parts of the body [read: community] that are weaker are indispensable, and the parts we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. (1Corinthians 12:22-23)

We may never understand all the reasons. And we will certainly never be able to quantify the results. But I know as surely as I know each dimple on Jonathan’s cheeks: by committing ourselves to help these children reach their potential, we are better able to reach our own.

Originally published in the Novato Advance, 1997