This week my kids were feeding crumbs to the fish in a pond when someone familiar walked by.

I met this woman last year at a park and when I noticed her young daughter has cerebral palsy, felt comfortable asking questions that I would have hesitated about asking before Yirmiyahu was born.  There’s something about having a child with a disability diagnosis that makes it possible to have personal conversations without others feeling you’re prying.

The mother told me her little girl was born dead, with the cord wrapped tightly around her neck.  The doctors succeeded in resuscitating her but not before suffering brain damage that caused cerebral palsy.  She has been under constant pressure from many people in her social circle to institutionalize her daughter or put her in foster care so she can ‘start fresh’.  ‘What do you need to saddled with the burden of raising this child?’ they said.  ‘Have a normal child and let someone else raise this one.’

Should parents have a commitment to their unborn child to love him as he is when he is born, or is parental love conditional on a child meeting certain criteria from his first moments of life?

Thanks to her mother’s determination and love, this three year old girl has made advancements that the doctors told her would never be possible.  Her physical disability is still quite apparent, though.  Back in the spring, her mother shared with me that she was grappling with a decision about where to send her daughter to preschool.  The only choice presented to her was in a different city, with facilities that were squashed and dismal. She was concerned about every aspect of this school, including the 45 minute ride there her daughter would have to make unaccompanied by her mother via the school van.

I suggested to her that she consider looking locally, but she was told there was nothing suitable.  I shared my belief that it was important for her to find a place where she and her daughter both felt comfortable, to pursue the highest level of integration for her daughter that she could find.

When I met her this week, I asked about what school choice they made.  Her eyes lit up as she told me that her daughter loves her preschool.  She found a school for children with special needs in the same city she lives, in fact very close to her neighborhood.  It services children whose disabilities aren’t very noticeable and her daughter has made huge strides in all areas.  I was delighted to hear how her daughter is thriving as a result of this choice.

Then she told me, “It’s all thanks to you.”  I couldn’t even guess what she was talking about.  She reminded me that I encouraged her not to settle for what was being presented to them as the only option, that her daughter deserved a place where she would be feel secure and valued.  She told me I was the only one who ever said anything like this to her, who validated her and her daughter and this is what encouraged her to keep looking until she found a school that really met her daughter’s needs.

Who would think a couple of short conversations could make such a big difference?

Avivah