Twenty years ago today, our family was stopped in its tracks and turned in an entirely different direction by the arrival of this beautiful baby girl. We had a happy family of five, with well-established roles and patterns, and had reached that sort of family maturity that comes when the youngest is old enough and the oldest is young enough. A fourth kid certainly wasn’t in anyone’s plans (least of all Mom’s!), as I was already almost 10 when we found out Mom was pregnant.
Still, I suppose we were as prepared as any family could be. My older brother and sister had been volunteering with disabled people during the summers, and Mom had been learning sign language to be an interpreter for the deaf at our church, all experience that would become very useful after Rebekah was born with Down Syndrome.
Prepared or not, we never could’ve imagined the life we would lead as a family in the years that followed. Two decades of struggle, heartache, worry and stress have been far exceeded by the triumphant and charmed life that is Rebekah. She’s made us more patient, affectionate and compassionate people, and introduced a whole host of amazing people into our lives that we otherwise would have never met. It may seem strange to call the introduction of a disabled child into a family a blessing, but that is exactly what she has been to us and everyone who’s met her, for every day of her twenty years.
Happy birthday, kiddo. I love you.