Notes from Uncle Michael {31 for 21}

Just a little preface:

1.  I asked my brother to write a guest post about having a niece with Ds.
2.  My original plan was to save it for the "U" post but I received the document yesterday & decided it was criminal to wait 9 days.
3.  The title is Notes from Uncle Michael which is slightly misleading since this is a singular document.  My hope is that he will drop in from time to time during the tenure of this blog so it's only fitting to assign him his own little category.
4.  After reading this you will likely think, "this guy should write a book."  Well, he has.  A couple to be exact.  His first foray into book writing resulted in True Sons, A Century of Missouri Tiger Basketball.  His second masterpiece is now complete & awaiting publication but you can get a little glimpse here.

So, without further ado, a post from Reese's uncle:

A confession: I cried.

I could try to sort out all the reasons now, to give explanations, but they really don’t matter. Just know that after briefly opting for denial, I cried. At home. In the car. At a coffee shop (quietly and to myself, mind you; I do know my coffee-shop-crying etiquette). And then I had a thought that snapped me out of it.

Someday she’s going to ask about the day she was born, and we had better be able to say that we were happy.

In that moment, my niece did something she’s been doing ever since. She changed my way of thinking.

The strangest thing about my experience with Reese is that it hasn’t really been that strange at all. I don’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, she didn’t deliver it.

Instead, she delivered the kinds of things my kids did years before – rancid diapers and giggles, cries and cuddles. She likes to be talked to and played with. She likes puppies and birthday cake. She likes it when her daddy walks into the room.

Everybody has their something. Reese has Down syndrome.

My son has asthma and speech issues, and I have an arthritic knee and a need for bifocals that I steadfastly ignore. But those aren’t the stories of our lives. And Down syndrome isn’t the story of Reese’s.

It just started her story with a bang. An extra chromosome and open-heart surgery in a person’s first year will do that. But after those initial shocks, things settled into something closely akin to everyday life. Exploring new foods, squirming around on the floor, trying to stand with the aid of the ottoman. Baby stuff. Normal stuff.

That day, in that coffee shop, behind those tears, I assumed Down syndrome would be the whole story. Instead, it’s just one point in the plot.

Reese has shown me that most of us experience the same things in the same ways, no matter our challenges. She just recently celebrated her first birthday, so there are lots of unknowns to come, but when she cries for a nap or laughs at being hoisted in the air, I never think “that child with Down syndrome is tired and loves to fly.”

I expected something profound. I got something routine.

As much as anything, Reese has revealed the character of others, the deep well of human kindness. I saw it the day after she was born when the director of the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City personally dropped a gift basket on my doorstep. I’ve seen it in all the days since as scores of people have flocked to fundraisers, or volunteered to babysit or simply stopped to ask me how Reese is doing. People who have never met Reese care for her well-being.

Reese has also revealed the character of her parents. Her dad has shown himself as the kind of man I aspire to be, and my sister has proven to be the kind of mom every kid wants to have, a woman who is warm, nurturing and not to be trifled with, especially if you’re a young physician not meeting her (lofty) expectations of care for her child.

Reese has made good people even better, and she’s just getting started. A sister who is not yet three and a sibling who is not yet born will know more about empathy before they hit elementary school than many people will learn in their lives. They’ll know that everybody has their something, and none of it needs to be a big deal. They’ll grow up with kindness in their nature, compassion in their core.

Reese is working on her first words now. We’re pretty sure we hear “baby.” And soon there will be “mommy” and “daddy” and “sissy,” and then countless others. And someday sooner than we think, she’ll string the words together and she’ll ask the question.

And we’ll all say that we were very, very happy.