It hurts her parents. It hurts me. And it will hurt her someday.
The way our society deals with differences. The way her being, her existence, is a thing that scientists and doctors are working to prevent. My granddaughter, Lucy, has Down syndrome. This isn't a tragedy. But the world in which we live acts as if it is.
Read MoreIt's one year later. One year after the ground caved in and the world blew apart and the center failed to hold. One year after we were told, ``I'm sorry'' so many times that we were sorry, too.Three hundred and sixty-five days, some of them terrible. The day my granddaughter Lucy Rose was diagnosed with Down syndrome. The cold, rainy day she came home. The day the doctor said she needed heart surgery. The day of the surgery when the operation didn't go as planned. The days after, at the hospital, when we felt helpless at her side.
Read MoreThe pregnant one can't come home to us these days. She's not supposed to stray more than an hour from her home. The baby isn't due for a few weeks yet, but babies are unpredictable, her doctors tell her. So Adam - he already has his name - could come sooner. He could come later. And while she waits, we drive.
Read MoreOh, we have turned into a bunch of goofballs around my house. Look at us, oohing and aahing over a smile, a coo, a tiny fist wrapped around our finger, two arms fluttering like wings.
"Look how cute she is," we say 100 times a day. "Look how cute she is sitting. Look how cute she is sleeping. Look at her cute little lips and her cute little cheeks and her cute little hands and feet and fingers and toes." And on it goes - everything about this baby, exclaimed over and adored…
Read More"Human beings are God's language," Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote in his book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." He borrowed this thought from Menachem Mendel, a 19th-century rabbi from Poland. My friend, Father Coen, said it a different way. He said that we are all God's arms and…
Read More"Is Religion Good Medicine?" is the question on Newsweek's cover. "God and Health." Is there a connection?
Some experts say yes. Some say no. Prayer works. Prayer doesn't.
In the end, the article says nothing new. But that's no surprise. We pray for the big things. We want the miracle. "Ask and you shall receive." And when we ask and don't get exactly what we beg for, we think, it didn't work. My prayers weren't answered.
Read MoreHer mother bought her the bee costume. She found it at Old Navy. It's a plush, sturdy thing, which, hanging on a rack even without a face, resembled a giant bee. But put a baby in it and it was a bee for sure. "An angry bee," her mother said, though Lucy looked anything but angry. Perplexed, maybe. Curious. (Why is everyone going "bzzz bzzz"?) But definitely not angry.
The costume has two layers. The bottom is a brown snuggly sleeper, and the top - the bee part - is yellow and brown and BIG…
Read MoreSometimes I pretend I'm her mother. That's OK, isn't it? Sometimes, when I'm walking my granddaughter all over town, I look up and see how much the town has changed in 35 years and how much I have changed, too…
Read MoreIt wasn’t a metaphor at first. It was just a ball of yarn. I took a picture of it, though. A close-up. I set it on my daughter’s pull out couch and clicked away intending to keep it as a reminder that perseverance pays off…
Read MoreIf my family were in the middle of nowhere, we would think we were happy. Plunk us on an island with no one else around and we would think it was Eden recreated. That's how charmed we'd feel. That's how blessed…
Read MoreNo one means to scare parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. What they mean to do is inform, enlighten. The more you know, the better off you are, right?
Knowledge is power, right?
Except that sometimes it isn't.
My mother-in-law had a saying: "Wee steps and slow." She applied this philosophy…
Read MoreI will have to apologize to her someday. I will have to tell my grandchild that I cried the day she was born.
Not immediately. Not when I first held her and she looked into my eyes and I looked into hers. There's a picture of this. Lucy, just minutes old, almost saying hello. I never shed a tear in her first 12 hours of her life when I thought she was USDA…
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