Unique Challenge?

Billy is a hoarder. We always called it a "pack rat" and thought it was somehow connected to his having Down syndrome. I located an entry in my journal dated January, 1999.

John is on the way to build shelves in Billy's study for his media center. We have worked for weeks to empty this tiny room with 17 years' collections in it.

When we moved two years later, much of Billy's "stuff" mysteriously disappeared. However, we moved into a larger house and like a carp thrown from a fish bowl into a pond, Billy's stuff adapted to the size of its environment. The TV Guides, 8 track tapes, and xeroxed copies of Jane Fonda were no longer there, but the system grew to include video tapes, Peoples Magazine, and DVD films. Again, with the help of Billy's siblings, we sought a solution to the unwieldy collection.

Tom spent most of last week converting a rarely used garage adjacent to Billy's apartment into a new media center. It contains many shelves, a place for a spare bed, niches for Billy's desk and his stereo player, and a spot for his exercise machine. In his usual manner, Tom created a beautiful room, professionally built and thoughtfully made to accommodate Billy's treasures. Needless to say, Billy is thrilled with the results and is moving slowly to make it a true media center. Mary hauled trash (my term), purchased materials, cooked meals, and was on hand for any errands.

Ironically, in Sunday's newspaper, I noted that one of the TV stations listed about four hours of programs about hoarding. I watched some of the stories and was amazed at the gravity of this compulsive disorder. Apparently there are around three million people in the United States who are living in dangerous, unhealthy situations created by hoarding. In the recorded versions the treatments required a clinical psychologist or certified organizer plus dozens of vans to haul away things people had saved. In one situation it was revealed by the children that before their father died he had for years removed his wife's collections on a regular basis.

I no longer regard Billy's disorder as a "unique challenge." The unique aspect is the remarkable and loving help from his siblings.

Beautiful People (Part 1)

Meet Mariah, who lives in Florida. You already know Billy.

Mariah and Billy met at a Down syndrome conference in Boston, in 2003. Mariah was with her mother Nancy, Billy and I were together, all of us attending a dance following the final dinner of the conference. Nancy and I began talking, Mariah and Billy just looked at each other. Mariah, about three or four, reached up to Billy and he lifted her up in his arms. It was a wonderful, natural moment, one I am delighted to have captured in a photograph.

Mariah is now in school in a regular classroom, reading, riding horseback, engaging in many extra-curricular activities. Nancy is a strong advocate for children and adults who have disabilities and has a blog, www.PODS Angels.org, a parent support group for parents of children with Down syndrome in Florida.

If you go to a Down syndrome conference, you will be astonished to note that so many children and young adults look as if they belonged to the same family. After a while you begin to feel as if you are in a strange land, looking different from everyone else. You can see that similarity in the faces of Mariah and Billy. You notice the almond-shaped eyes, the smooth countenance, the small nose. And after a while you see the beauty.

Looking at this picture, I see innocence, openness, acceptance, wonderment. I see two beautiful people. What do you see?

The Gift of Grandchildren

Grandchildren are the compensation for growing old. I felt that strongly during the week of Thanksgiving, when my granddaughter Carrie visited me. She was a wonderful child and now is a beautiful young woman. We share so many memories and this past week relived some of them.

I have a picture of Carrie standing on a chair, stirring something in a pot on the stove in my kitchen in North Carolina. I can't find the picture but when she asked to cook with me I experienced that moment again. She wanted to make vegetable soup, French bread, and cheese cake, dishes that she remembered seeing and helping me make.


I have been fortunate enough to live near all of my grandchildren during their early years - in Georgia near Paul and J.R., North Carolina near Isaac and Carrie, and now in Tennessee where Daniel and Warren live. We visited each other frequently and have shared many delightful experiences.

It's a funny thing about grandchildren - a feeling that has a place of its own. I think it's tied to the feelings you have for their parents, with maturity and experience added. I have a spot on my shoulder that can still feel one of those little heads nestled into my embrace. I can see the joy on their faces when I arrived for a visit or welcomed them into my home. Those are memories - joys - that I cherished then and remember now.

And now seeing them as adults I add the immense pride in their accomplishments and ambitions, in the people they are becoming and have become. Now they cook with me, bring their friends to meet me, help me with my own projects as they develop theirs.

Grandchildren make those years worth the ones that are slipping by.