Post by violettesmom on Aug 19, 2007 20:51:39 GMT -5
In the Boston Thread...
I thought I'd post about my visit to a funeral of a good friend's father I went to last week. His mom and dad have had foster kids with DS since my friend was 2 yo. Two of them are permanent foster kids, so when DD was diagnosed a few weeks ago I had a good idea what I was getting from being around them. They are great, in good health at 40, but pretty non-verbal (although the one brother I haven't seen for about 15 years and he came right up to me and said "september" the month of my birthday without missing a beat, lol).
Anyway, at the funeral were friends they had from special olympics. The friends had two children of their own, both with DS. One is 40, one is 38. The baby and I had flown from Ohio to Wisconsin with my mom to attend the funeral, and my friend had told the couple that Miss Violette has DS. The father was as nice as he could be to me, and in the first two seconds mentioned that Timmy, his son WAS GOING TO CHINA next month with Special Olympics, and that he, his wife and his other DS daughter were going to cheer him on. I was floored.
Their mother told me that when her first child was born 40 years ago she belonged to a group called "Mothers of Mongoloids" (I cringed, and she rolled her eyes and said, yeah, it was a different time, lol). Her DD was very emotional through the funeral. The son, not so much. My friend has know them since they were kids and said they were pretty much exactly the same way when they were kids. The father said they are very blessed in that the daughter is very vocal (she was walking by when he said that and she responded with "and my brother is a big flirt" which was totally true). They both work at McDonalds.
Anyway, it was really cool to be with someone in a small wisconsin town who had DS who is an adult and going around the world and excited about it! One thing that I was worried about when V was born was that we wouldn't be able to travel as a family and see the world - and I really wanted to do that with my older girls. I have great hope that we still will be able to do that after meeting this family!
I thought I'd post about my visit to a funeral of a good friend's father I went to last week. His mom and dad have had foster kids with DS since my friend was 2 yo. Two of them are permanent foster kids, so when DD was diagnosed a few weeks ago I had a good idea what I was getting from being around them. They are great, in good health at 40, but pretty non-verbal (although the one brother I haven't seen for about 15 years and he came right up to me and said "september" the month of my birthday without missing a beat, lol).
Anyway, at the funeral were friends they had from special olympics. The friends had two children of their own, both with DS. One is 40, one is 38. The baby and I had flown from Ohio to Wisconsin with my mom to attend the funeral, and my friend had told the couple that Miss Violette has DS. The father was as nice as he could be to me, and in the first two seconds mentioned that Timmy, his son WAS GOING TO CHINA next month with Special Olympics, and that he, his wife and his other DS daughter were going to cheer him on. I was floored.
Their mother told me that when her first child was born 40 years ago she belonged to a group called "Mothers of Mongoloids" (I cringed, and she rolled her eyes and said, yeah, it was a different time, lol). Her DD was very emotional through the funeral. The son, not so much. My friend has know them since they were kids and said they were pretty much exactly the same way when they were kids. The father said they are very blessed in that the daughter is very vocal (she was walking by when he said that and she responded with "and my brother is a big flirt" which was totally true). They both work at McDonalds.
Anyway, it was really cool to be with someone in a small wisconsin town who had DS who is an adult and going around the world and excited about it! One thing that I was worried about when V was born was that we wouldn't be able to travel as a family and see the world - and I really wanted to do that with my older girls. I have great hope that we still will be able to do that after meeting this family!
