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

2020-10-27T13:43:26-05:00Categories: Grown Ups & Downs|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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What I’m smiling at these days

Ok, first things first, #1 this video!

We are Goo Goo Dolls fans and have been since, oh…before some of you were born. (Well, probably not many under 21 reading this, but possible!) ANYway, Marcus and I have been singing along (and karaoke-ing too) to many a Goo Goo Dolls song over the years.  I even wrapped up the Goo Goo Dolls song “Iris” into a starter review of a few Broadway shows a few years ago. Marcus singing “Iris” is something that will never not rip my heart out. From

2020-09-25T18:32:04-05:00Categories: Grown Ups & Downs|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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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

2020-06-16T07:17:43-05:00Categories: Grown Ups & Downs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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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

2019-11-09T07:27:13-06:00Categories: Grown Ups & Downs|Tags: , , , , , , |2 Comments
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