Angels

I came across this poem one day and it seemed like it was appropriate for every parent who has lost a child under any circumstance. I am not sure who wrote it but I would like to share.

Continue reading...

Some angels come to visit us,
and be our guests one day.
We know not why they choose our home,
or just how long they stay.
We developed such a love for them,
we didn't stop to think.
That when they had to leave us,
how our hopes and hearts would sink.
They brought much joy and happiness,
but a little sorrow too,
sometimes we were worried,
we knew not what to do.
In this glorious life of sunshine, we must also have some rain,
and amid our joy and happiness,
we must also get some pain,
we are in a state of sadness now,
and repeat a silent prayer,
for those heavenly angels
God placed within our care,

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day

By Lori Borgman

Expectant mothers waiting for a newborn's arrival say they don't care what sex the baby is. They just want to have ten fingers and ten toes.

Mothers lie.
Continue reading...

Every mother wants so much more.
She wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head,
rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin.
She wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.

She wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column two).
Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions.
She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park
and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class.
Call it greed if you want, but a mother wants what a mother wants.

Some mothers get babies with something more.

Maybe you're one who got a baby with a condition you couldn't pronounce,
a spine that didn't fuse,
a missing chromosome or a palate that didn't close.
The doctor's words took your breath away.
It was just like the time at recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming,
and it knocked the wind right out of you.

Some of you left the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later,
took him in for a routine visit, or scheduled him for a checkup,
and crashed head first into a brick wall as you bore the brunt of devastating news.
It didn't seem possible.
That didn't run in your family.
Could this really be happening in your lifetime?

There's no such thing as a perfect body.
Everybody will bear something at some time or another.
Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen,
quietly treated with trips to the doctor, therapy or surgery.
Mothers of children with disabilities live the limitations with them.

Frankly, I don't know how you do it.
Sometimes you mothers scare me.
How you lift that kid in and out of the wheelchair twenty times a day.
How you monitor tests, track medications,
and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.

I wonder how you endure the cliches and the platitudes,
the well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work
when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike.
I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy columns like this one-saluting you,
painting you as hero and saint,
when you know you're ordinary.
You snap, you bark, you bite.
You didn't volunteer for this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling,
"Choose me, God. Choose me! I've got what it takes."

You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack.
You've developed the strength of the draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil.
You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July,
counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.

You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability.
You're a neighbor, a friend, a woman I pass at church and my sister-in-law.
You're a wonder.


Lori Borgman is a syndicated columnist and author of All Stressed Up and No Place To Go, her latest humor book now available wherever books are sold.

Hi, everybody

I'd like to thank Moreena for the invitation to join this blog and Ciara for linking me here. Anyway, I'm a 42-year-old father of two autistic/mentally retarded boys, ages 8 and 6. Both boys are energetic and frequently happy; both can be extremely violent and destructive as well. The 8-year-old is capable of speech; the 6-year-old isn't. Our family resides in the Northsore area of New Orleans, Louisiana. The boys currently reside at the St. Mary's Residential Training School in Alexandria, Louisiana, where they are given love, dignity, and round-the-clock professional care and training. Our local school system was very accommodating, but the home situation was so crazy that we decided to make use of St. Mary's, which is very much like a country boarding school run by nuns. It was devasating to place them outside the home, but I'm pleasantly surprised at how well the boys have adapted and even improved. Anyway, I look forward to conversing here.