Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 17, 1995 TAG: 9508170062
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Besides the extra sleep, taking a few months off from church makes the first Sunday after Labor Day, when we all come back, very special. It's a time to see people we haven't seen in a while and to talk about how the summer went.
With the adults, it seems as though you can just pick up your relationships where you left off during the spring. But the children almost have become different people, and I always enjoy seeing how much they've changed.
Last year, I was especially glad to see Wyatt. Wyatt has red-gold hair, blue eyes, a little button nose and cheeks that look as though they've just been pinched by an overenthusiastic aunt. Wyatt is now 3 1/2, but it was just last summer that he learned to walk. Wyatt has Down syndrome.
Every time I look at this little boy, I feel breathless. I think he is amazing. A cousin of mine was born with Down syndrome nearly 20 years ago, and she had heart problems and other medical difficulties. When she died at 1 1/2, she wasn't able to sit up by herself.
Wyatt's mother said he gets colds and ear infections, but otherwise, he is healthy. And since he's started walking, his parents said they can hardly keep up with him.
Because the muscle tone in his upper body is weak, Wyatt never learned to crawl like other children. But he hardly sat still.
Instead, he got around by sitting cross-legged on the floor, pushing off with his strong little legs and lunging forward while balanced on the sides of his feet. He could leap vertically almost the length of his legs, landing on his diapered bottom between each jump. When he wanted to change direction, he merely shifted his weight in mid-air.
His method of locomotion was so efficient that by his second Christmas, he was able to hop around the entire sanctuary. Along the way, he popped into his mouth all the holly berries that had fallen on the floor from the wall decorations. Luckily, his mother caught him before he could swallow them.
Wyatt's way of getting around was a testimony to the perseverance of human nature, and of our inborn need to understand and explore the world around us. If he couldn't do it the way everyone else did, he was going to figure out a way somehow.
During a church service when he was a year old, someone got up to thank Wyatt's mother and another mother of a handicapped child for providing the rest of us with inspiration as they worked to help their children.
Both of the mothers wept and seemed flattered, but something about that kind of praise didn't seem right. I think what makes the parents of handicapped children special is not that they are saints or martyrs or somehow better than the rest of us. It's that they are ordinary people doing extraordinary things so that they can have what every other parent wants: a happy, healthy, safe child.
If the parents of a handicapped child do any "favors" for the rest of us, it's providing us the opportunity to get to know their children. One of the greatest fears most humans have, and the cause of most prejudice, is the fear of someone who is different than we are.
Knowing people like Wyatt can teach us that "different" isn't always bad.
Betsy Biesenbach is a part-time staff writer for The Roanoke Times and a freelance paralegal.
by CNB