Summer joy 7: harvest

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22 (Amplified)

Summer joy 6: rain

Tuesday night, after days of sweltering temperatures, our heat wave finally broke. The heat index had been reaching the low 100's F for a couple of days. Off and on yesterday, rain, sweet rain.
(Thanks to Actual Unretouched Photo, from the ever mild and rainy Northwest, for asking.)

This is just to say

(with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

I have eaten
the first cherry tomatoes
that were ripe on
the vine

and which
I wanted
to save
for a picture for you

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and sun warm

Summer joy 5: green fields

Soybeans (neighboring field)

July 25 addition:

. . . . the drive from here to the hospital is so pretty. I steer clear of the interstate and take Highway 61, known to southeast Missourians as “the old highway,” through a couple of dozen miles of rolling farmland. The trees along Highway 61 are so green this week that Technicolor couldn't begin to capture their intensely saturated hue, . . . . Art, I'm sure, means more to city dwellers who live far from such natural pleasures, and when I return home to the city, mine will mean more to me. At present, though, I'm happy to revel in the world around me as I drive to and from my temporary job as a caregiver. That seems to be all the beauty I need.
(from About Last Night, where arts critic Terry Teachout is blogging about leaving New York to spend some time caring for his aging, ailing mother, in his southeast Missouri hometown.)

(Apologies to aggregators and rss feeds, if this repeated. Blogger is not wysiwyg with text wrapping photos.)

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Because tonight I am thankful my son survived this morning's fall down the stairs. (He has survived two falls off the bed, one down a few steps held by mom, one down a few steps held by dad.)

He usually scoots down safely "in sitting," unless assisted to walk down. This morning I left him half way down, and went to start breakfast. He evidently started down, and decided to pull his knees up inside his t-shirt, which he does when cold (in the a/c). I heard three thumps. He was curled on the floor, silent, face contorted in pain, bleeding from the mouth. Then he started crying quietly. (Was he holding his head oddly?*) The emergency squad was here in a few minutes, and found he was in no apparent, immediate danger. So I took him down to the emergency room. He smiled at me, right upper lip swelling, in the hospital parking lot, and I thought he was probably going to be ok. We went in, and he was checked over and out in a record one hour, 45 minutes. (When he had a concussion, 19 months ago, the visit lasted close to five hours.)

If the worst had happened, I would not cry because we lost our son with Down syndrome, but because we lost our son. I would cry because he had not yet learned to talk, and I had not gotten to know him like I wanted to.

This night, like all other nights, is a night to be thankful.

*Like about 15% of children with Down syndrome, our son has atlanto-axial instability. One of the cervical vertabrae in his neck is weak. He is cleared for horseback riding and the trampoline, but not for somersaults or anything that places pressure on the head or neck.

Summer Joy 4: family reunion

My grandmother birthed 19 children (including two sets of twins) in 24.5 years, according to my aunt. The 14 who survived early childhood attended today's reunion, along with many of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

When I entered the cafeteria, the crowd was a blur, so I focused on the food: chicken; meatballs; dressing made with homemade bread; slow cookers of noodles, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, mixed vegetables, and sloppy joe filling; taco salad; fruit salads; vegetable salads; watermelon; cheese plates; a vegetable platter; and about 14 kinds of dessert.

On tables to the side sat water, lemonade, sweet mint tea, unsweetened iced tea, and coffee. One aunt asked another, "Do you think other family reunions have this much food?"

Summer Joy 3 : reading

I am bringing this to the surface from a behind-the-scenes email follow-up to Summer Joy 1, in which I recommended Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck. (Beck is a contributor to Oprah's O magazine.)

Expecting Adam is an entertaining book. Warning: Beck is pro-choice, a lapsed Mormon, and sometimes lets her imagination run away with her. As a married mother of one and a Harvard student, she finds herself carrying a child with Down syndrome. She attends a disturbing class in which abortion for children with disabilities is endorsed, but decides to allow her son to live. Adam brings the Beck family a lot of joy, while radically transforming their perspective on the value of an IQ. Their journey will make you laugh; it will make you cry.

Mitchell Zuckoff's Choosing Naia tells a story along similar lines, but with a more serious tone. It carries additional layers; the child will be bi-racial. The father is black, and doesn't want his daughter to have a double stigma to deal with. It has been awhile since I read this, but I felt for the man in his struggle. If you believe God makes the choice to give a child life, you do not face this particular turmoil. The wife did give birth to the little girl, and the family learned to love her. If I remember correctly, the paternal grandparents were firmly pro-life, and gave the couple moral support. I believe the couple was visiting churches, looking for a good fit, toward the end of the story. (The book is based on a series of articles Zuckoff wrote for the Boston Globe, as he followed the family's journey.)

Michael Berube's Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child is another account by a pro-choice intellectual. This couple didn't know their son had Down syndrome before he was born. Both parents were professors, and here again, love for child with a disability causes a deep shift in the way his parents view intellectual ability. Berube gets wordy and political. It is fascinating to watch a pro-choice pragmatist trying to argue against aborting children with Down syndrome. I respect this man for loving his son and for his disability advocacy, in spite of his ideology.

I am not recommended these books as uplifting Christian reading, but as a path to insight into the way some families deal with having a child with a disability. They are well-written and interesting. Mourning is changed to joy; what parents greeted with dread turns into a blessing. They are inwardly transformed by their children.

I found the discussions of choice disturbing, but waded through them (1) for the sake of the rest of the story, and (2) because I thought it valuable to understand how people think in these situations. They are a part of the reality in which we find ourselves. (Our local Down syndrome association gets calls from people who are making murder an option when their unborn child is diagnosed with Down syndrome.) I did not understand how these parents could remain pro-choice after having their children. I felt they were blinded by the culture.

For encouragement, try Gene Stallings' Another Season. Stallings is former University of Alabama football coach, and father of Johnny, who has Down syndrome. One of the pediatricians in the group we use attended U. of Alabama, and knows who Johnny is, which makes me feel connected. If I remember correctly, this was a Christian family.

Recommended reading: Changed by a Child: Companion Notes for Parents of a Child with a Disability, by Barbara Gill.

Summer Joy 2: fruit of the vine

Two years ago, our son was approaching school age. We put our house up for sale and moved seven miles north, into an apartment in a school district better suited to his needs. I said "goodby" to my flowers and the tomato patch around the corner of the house.

We spent last summer in an apartment.

This summer's crop will be especially sweet.

View from the road 2

Mother and foal, Holmes County, July '05

This foal is probably destined to pull a plow and/or a buggy. Eventually, it will be separated from its mother, through death or auction.

Thoughts expressed in the previous post, combined with sentiments generated by this picture, bring to the forefront the area of my greatest concern, and that of many parents of children with significant handicaps: what will happen to our child when we are gone? Can I give God "free range" of that time and space? Believe His love will be practically there, for our son?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 KJV

Recommended reading: Friendship Ministries
Laying Community Foundations for Your Child With a Disability: How to Establish Relationships That Will Support Your Child After You're Gone, Linda Stengle
Recommended by a friend: A Good Life, Al Etmanski

View from the road 1

Cheerful chicken eggs for sale, Holmes County, July 2005

Yesterday we traveled several hours northwest to visit relatives. When chickens in their area are cheerful, it is because they are free-range (not caged).

Today, in church, a singer sang his view of God had been too small. He had not thought God would be able to help him. In the chorus of the song, he came to see that God had free range across reality. Free range.

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Psalm 139:8-12 KJV