A Healing Balm for the Down Syndrome Community and Allies

The Global Down Syndrome Foundation each year hosts a fabulous event called Be Beautiful, Be Yourself. At this year’s event on November 14th,  we’re going to celebrate. We’re going to cry. We’re going to push forward. I’m the mother of an adult with Down syndrome.  There’s so much that I want to tell you, I hardly know where to begin…

Shall I start with 2020 and Covid? Of how scared I am…I fear the possibility that my very breath can bring in a virus that kills people with Down syndrome at

Everyone Needs Help

A Gift From the Universe to Change the World

coffee shop

My son, Marcus, and I have had many writing sessions and meetings with collaborators at our neighborhood coffee shop, particularly while we were working on his first book for children and the accompanying animated short. We also wrote the speech we gave at the United Nations building there earlier this year. Today I write solo and the notebook to my right has the lyric, “The universe is resting in my arms” (from Nina Gordan’s song “Tonight”) written and

Come So Far And Yet

 

Just less than thirty years ago, I was handed a book written for parents of a new baby with Down syndrome that began with, “Do not put your baby in an institution.” Literally, this was the first line of the book.

Still, a social worker asked if we were “taking the baby home.”

Sigh.

Today I know women who coach doctors and nurses about how to share information about possible, potential, and available, instead of “put away.”

Be Beautiful, Be Yourself

Last weekend Marcus and I attended

Look Who’s on Yahoo Celebrity Lifestyle News!

The article begins…

“Several celebrities walked the red carpet and the runway in the 10th anniversary “Be Beautiful, Be Yourself” Fashion Show Saturday, Oct 20. The crowd cheered and mingled with the likes of Colin Farrell, Jeremy Renner, Heather Graham and more!

What makes this event especially impactful is the transformation of star-power when the models take to the runway.

This photo is a great example. I mean come on! That guy in the background, he’s cool and famous and all (award-winning actor John C. McGinley) but I think we can all agree that Kate Winfield

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