Happy birthday, Martoofer

I never know if Charley completely understands everything we talk about, but we talk about it just the same. I tend to think he's more savvy than I give him credit for. 

I had this conversation with Charley that was eerily like the one we had last year at this time, only with a few differences. The basic premise is the same. It went like this…

“Member Mom, Marking Day a-mowwow.”

“Marking Day?”

“Yeah. Thomas Center closed. Woohoo!” He punches the air with his fist.

Oh. I get it. He’s telling me that the Sertoma Center is closed tomorrow because it's Martin Luther King Day.

“You know, Son, there's much more to Martin Luther King Day than getting the day off.”

He studied me for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Martoofer birdday.”

“That’s right, it’s Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know who Martin Luther King was?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, who was he?”

“Martoofer.”

“Do you know why we celebrate his birthday?”

“Yeah.”

I waited, thinking he’d offer the reason, but he was busy playing with the buttons on the car heater. Turning them up, turning them down. Burning us up, freezing us out.

“Well, why is his birthday so important?”

“No Thomas Center!”

“So that’s it? Sertoma Center is closed? Is that all?”

“Yeah.”

He then started playing with the radio station buttons. Country. “I Love You this Big.” Pop. “Baby, Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me.” Oldies. “Come On People Now, Smile on your Brother, Everybody Get Together, Try and Love one Another Right Now.”

“Hey, Charley, that’s the first song I ever learned to play on my guitar!” I said, “It’s a great song for Martin Luther King Day.”

“Oh, coolt.”

More button pushing.

“Hurry into xxxxxx store for the Martin Luther King sale. Everything is 50% off,” the announcer said.

“See?” Charley said, "Martoofer birthday."

“Okay son, we need to talk. First of all, they are having a sale to celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. That’s not what his birthday is all about.”

"Huh?"

More radio station surfing.

“Mom, I boat.”

“You what?”

"I BOAT. Geeze, Mom." He rubbed his face with the palm of his hand like he does when he's close to calling me an idiot.

"Say it again, son."

“I boat. You boat. In da boof."

"You mean vote?"

"Yeah."

“You get to vote for President?”

“Yeah, Pwesidence day.”

“That's right. We vote for President, but not for Martin Luther King.”

“Oh.”

“Martin Luther King wasn’t President; he was a civil rights leader.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know what civil rights means?”

“Stop it, Mom.”

“It means he fought for the rights of people like you, Charley.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. And me, and Daddy.”

“Why?”

We didn't talk for a moment. Just listened to the next commercial, about some other MLK sale, and how we needed to hurry before everything was gone, because it only happens once a year. 

I was the one who broke the silence.

“Charley, do you know what Down Syndrome is?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know that you have Down Syndrome?”

“No I are not.”

“Yes you do.”

“Not me.”

“Charley, Down Syndrome is not a bad thing. It just means you are special.”

“Me?”

“Yes. It means God loved you enough to give you an extra chromosome. That means you have something most of us don’t have. It means that some people think of you as different.”

“Not me,” he said.

“It’s okay to be different, Son.”

“Yes I are.”

“Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted everyone to be treated the same.”

“Coolt!”

One of the things I like most about Charley is that it's never occurred to him not to be comfortable in his own skin.

“Yay! I like dat King guy.”

“He would have like you too, son.”

* * *

Sherry McCaulley Palmer is the author of “Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption,” available on Amazon.com. 

Perhaps my friend Stephanie Holland says it best on her blog. Please visit “The Road We've Shared” at this link: http://roadwevesharedgzp.weebly.com/the-roadmap-blog/wwmlkd-civil-rights-and-down-syndrome

The Air Up There

Super excited that Charley gets to go do this again...



Special Olympics - Team Gibbs

I hate to say this, but Charley has been crying lately. To put it mildly, he’s been having withdrawal symptoms.

Not drugs. Not alcohol.

No, it’s something more toxic. It's in the air. It’s withdrawal from connections. Those connections that tell him he matters.

Everyone needs connections. It validates us to know we are accepted just as we are.

Charley is no different. But ahhh, where he gets that validation from, that’s the thing.

Each year right after Christmas, Charley comes to me in tears. He says, “I miss um my fwents.”

And I do that Mom-thing, of grabbing him around the neck, hugging and kissing him, and telling him I know he misses his friends, and that I’ll do my level best to see what I can do…

But to tell you the truth, what I’m really doing is holding my breath. Wondering, will there be a spot for him? Will he get to go do the one thing that makes him feel like he is his own person? That place where he can just be himself? The one thing that assures him he does indeed, have friends? Friends who haven’t forgotten about him?

If you have a special needs child you know what I mean. If not, then, here’s the deal…

Charley just wants to be a regular guy.

He wants a girlfriend. He wants to date. He wants to be viewed as a person who has hopes and dreams. Bottom line, he just wants to be himself. He wants to have friends.

That’s not always possible for Charley. Unless someone calls him or comes to pick him up and take him out, he waits. He doesn’t have the same options you and I have. He can’t just pick up the phone and call someone.

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for him, always trying to fit into a world that would have him be different. Or, at the very least, would have him change just enough to fit in.

What if changing just enough to fit in means compromising who you really are?

I see it in my son every day.

He heads to a sheltered workshop where there are others like him. People who would have nowhere else to go if it weren't for the workshop. Several are older than he is. There is little opportunity for meeting girls. For making friends. The kind of friends that will go out running around with you without your mom having to drive you or lurk in the wings.

He enters a classroom that has activities he is expected to participate in, and little vision for what he wants to do or wants to be.

Do this, Charley.

Don’t do that, Charley.

Stop it, Charley.

Charley put on your jacket. Mrs. Palmer, Charley came in without his jacket today.

Charley ate his lunch on the way in the door today.

Come here, go there, Charley.

Do they know he is tech-savy? That he can fix things? Do they have any idea how brilliant his mind is?

Do they even have time to know? They are so busy with agenda.

That’s where Special Olympics comes in.

While most of us are tucked away in our warm houses in the winter, Charley is taking to the slopes in Gatlinburg. Strutting his stuff. Showing off for whatever girl he has his eye on. Making friends.

At Special Olympics, he’s not warehoused. There's a different air up there. He’s free to be who he is, the way he wants to be. Free to breathe.

Most of all, for a couple of days he has friends. People who see who he is, and who he can be. People who may tell him where to go and what to do, but it’s a different kind of telling. People who tell him to go for that next jump. “Go for it Charley!”

Go Charley Go!

It’s camaraderie. An acceptance of who he is, and when they say, “Just be yourself,” they mean it. And he knows it. They don’t mean, “Be yourself as long as it is within the parameters of what we think you should be.”

That’s why each year we hold our breath. He comes home from Special Olympics a different person. Not as a person who has had to be what everyone else wants him to be, but what he wants to be.

A regular guy.

And why not? He’s been to a place where it’s okay to dance. To flirt. To laugh out loud. To compete, and to slap a high-five with your teammates. To know you are part of a team that wants you just the way you are. A team that tells you the team is more fun when you are there.

To say we hold our breath doesn’t even begin to describe it. Each year Brad and I look at each other and pray, “Please God, let there be a next time.”

It’s as important to Charley as breathing.

It fills him up.

It puts that twinkle in his eye. That pep in his step.

For a few years now, Charley has been included on the Gibbs Special Olympics team. Even though he graduated in 2013, they have managed to find a spot for him. They probably don’t know this, but it’s as important to him as breathing. That’s why we hold our breath.

Last week the call came. The one that said there was a spot for him. The one that made me cry into my napkin at lunch because when he cries about missing his “fwents” I’ll be able to say, “How's the air up there?” He knows what that means...it means he's headed to Ober Gatlinburg. Yeah baby!

In two weeks, we will take him to the parking lot where he will board the bus and head to Gatlinburg. The bus that will pull out of that parking lot and leave us in the rearview mirror as he settles into his seat for the time
 of his life.

When people find out he’s going to Special Olympics and will be gone for a couple of days, they often say, “That will give you a breather.”

And they are right. For a couple of days we breathe. Not because he’s gone, but because we know when he returns he will have breathed a different kind of air.

Up there.

                                                  * * *

Sherry McCaulley Palmer is the author of Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption, available at: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Charley-Sherry-Palmer/dp/1937365700/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421600733&sr=8-1&keywords=Life+with+charley

Countdown to Gatlinburg (a Special Olympics Post)

I wrote this last year after Charley left for Special Olympics. He's heading to Gatlinburg again this year, thanks to the support and outreach of Gina Legg and Gibbs High School. These folks who give of themselves to make sure Charley has the Special Olympics experience have no idea how much it means to him. I hope over the next couple of weeks to change that. 

So I begin this series of Special Olympics posts by looking back. It is with this in mind, that we look forward. 

Here goes... 

A Little Extra Oomph...

It’s Monday night, and I’m struggling with writing. All writers will tell you they sometimes stare at the blank page for what seems like forever, and that’s what I’m doing. Or, at least that’s what I was doing, until I received a text about ten minutes ago. 

     Charley’s an easy subject for the most part. With his shenanigans, his laugh, and what we call his bullheaded chromosome, he’s anything but blank. But when he’s gone my oomph goes with him.

     You see, Sunday he boarded a bus and headed to the winter games of the Special Olympics in Gatlinburg. But back to the text – oh how I needed it, because there, on my cell phone was a picture of him, standing on the ski slopes with his teacher, Miss Gerry.

      

     He’s temporarily ditched the grey muscle-man shirt he lives in and is sporting a red hooded sweatshirt like the rest of the team.

      

     He’s wearing brand new jeans that bend in all the right places when he unleashes his dance moves that make him look cool on the dance floor. He’s put on aftershave to give him some oomph, even though he didn’t shave before he left. But most of all, he’s wearing a grin and a twinkle in his eye.

     He’s staying in a hotel room and partying the night away. He’s probably meeting a girl but will most likely forget to get her phone number and will arrive home expecting that we will magically know how to call the girl he now refers to as his “Purty.”

      

     It’s all because of Special Olympics, created by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in her back yard in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s so that her sister Rosemary would have a place to play. I wonder if she knew that somewhere in Gatlinburg nearly 63 years later, a man with intellectual challenges would be having the time of his life because someone saw past disabilities into the core of abilities.

     Someone envisioned a better way of life for people like my Charley. Someone looked around, counted her blessings, and showered others with opportunities. Because of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he is running, lacing up a pair of ice skates, and hanging onto the handlebars of the walker-like support device that steadies him so he won’t land on his backside. But so what if he does? He’ll think of himself as a winner because he had the courage to put one foot in front of the other, and try.

     

     Fascinating, how a traditional team practices until they are ready for the big game. Only a select few get to run out onto the field to the roar of a thundering crowd. Over and over, they practice their moves; fine tuning their technique that will make them legends in their arenas.

     Special Olympics practices too. They practice patience, support, respect, encouragement. Somewhere in Gatlinburg, there are teachers and coaches who have taken time out of their personal lives to make the Special Olympics a reality for someone else. While their own families are at home, these individuals provide hands-on assistance to the participants, so that life can have a little more meaning. No one makes them do this; they do it out of love for their students, so they can be included. So they can have their moment. Their thundering crowd. Their arena. A little extra oomph.

     If you know of a teacher or coach who has given so much of themselves for these special athletes, take a moment won’t you, to thank them on behalf of all Special Olympians everywhere.

Tell them Charley sent you.

                                                                          *  *  *

Sherry Palmer is the author of, "Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption" available at: 

http://www.amazon.com/Life-With-Charley-Syndrome-Adoption-ebook/dp/B00O29FJB0

And now, a word from our sponsor...

Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption

By Sherry McCaulley Palmer

Look for it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-With-Charley-Syndrome-Adoption-ebook/dp/B00O29FJB0

Preacher's Son Apprehended. A-rest to Follow

N

                                                       Busted!

Knoxville, TN. 

In the wee hours of Saturday, Precinct 8612 in Jefferson County received a frantic phone call reporting a break-in at the home of the Reverend Brad Palmer. 

Roving reporter Matilda Farnsworth was on the scene of the crime, where the Preacher's wife stated that just after 3:00 a.m. she heard the sound of her son's bedroom door opening, followed by a flash of light. Moments later she found the refrigerator door ajar, and that's when she knew there'd been a break-in.

In an exclusive interview, Mrs. Palmer said she noticed her 24-year old son moving in a suspicious manner through the hallway, then disappearing into his room. She asked if anything was wrong to which he replied, "I got dis..."

When questioned as to whether anything was missing, she stated "Only the milk."

According to Farnsworth, the Reverend's son has been known to raid the refrigerator at all hours of the night. "I'm not one to cry over spilt milk, but I just can't help it," she told Farnsworth. "When Charley says he's got dis, he means he's got milk," stated the Mrs., adding, "Not only has he made off with our milk, he killed our breakfast. The kid is a cereal murderer."

Numerous warnings were issued, including yelling, "Stop Thief!" However, attempts to keep her son out of the fridge in the middle of the night were unsuccessful.

Further details are unavailable at this time, but the Preacher's wife did disclose that future plans for imposing a kitchen curfew along with a refrigerator lockdown are underway, and that her husband slept through the entire occurrence. 

No charges were filed but the 8612 Precinct Insomnia Police have offered her an all expense paid trip to Sleepy Town. The Preacher's wife stated that she looks forward to an a-rest just as soon as she returns from the Loony Bin.

                                                              * * *

Sherry McCaulley Palmer is the author of Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption, available at: 

http://www.amazon.com/Life-With-Charley-Syndrome-Adoption-ebook/dp/B00O29FJB0

The following is a review from Amazon:

Three Cheers for Charley! October 15, 2014

By Sandi Hutcheson (Author, Looks Great Naked)

"There are times when we just have to hold our breath and jump in," Sherry Palmer writes of the decision she and her husband, Brad, made in 1990 to adopt a baby with Down Syndrome. Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome recounts their joyful journey, and it is a beautiful story. Palmer is a gifted storyteller whose honesty and candor and all-out love for her son will earn her readers' deepest respect. You'll laugh, you'll cringe, you'll wonder how she does it, and you'll hope for the pleasure of someday meeting Charley and his parents in person."

                                                                           *  *  *

To visit Sandi's Amazon page, please follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/Looks-Great-Naked-Sandi-Hutcheson-ebook/dp/B00AW4DDUS

Pappy Knee Year

Staying home from work today. I hate that. I'm a strange duck. I like working. But since I'm grounded, it seems like a good day to write a blog. My knee (the good one) is giving me some problems. Went to the emergency room yesterday, with Charley in tow. On the way to the hospital we talk about how it's a new year, and how it's going to be better than last year.

We're all going to behave this year. We're going to eat right, we're going to get skinny, and...and...

We get to the hospital and Charley goes inside to bring me a wheelchair. While Brad parks the car, Charley wheels me to the registration desk where a pretty, sweet young lady sits. 

Registration lady: Have you been here before?

Me:  Yes. (Of course I have, I've practically lived here since my accident).

Charley: Um... Ma'am, dis my Mom.

She nods and smiles at him.

Registration lady: What seems to be the problem?

Me: My right knee hurts so bad. I can barely walk on it. I felt something pop the other day and it's been hurting ever since.

Charley: Ma'am, my Mom hurt. You helpin' her.

Registration lady: When did it start?

Me: Last Tuesday. I went to the quick care center in Kentucky while I was there for Christmas.

Charley: You awe Purty. He raises his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marks. 

Registration lady: Thank you. (Another smile)

She places an identification band on my wrist, and directs us to the waiting area.

Charley waves goodbye and says, "Call me!"

Physician Assistant appears: What seems to be the problem?

Me: My right knee hurts so bad. I can barely walk on it. I felt something pop the other day and it's been hurting ever since.

Charley: Um Sir, dis my Mom.

Physician Assistant: When did it start?

Me: Last Tuesday. I went to the quick care center in Kentucky while I was there for Christmas.

Charley: Sir, my Mom hurt. You helpin' her.

Physician Assistant: I need to get some information from you. 

What existing health problems so you have?

What are your current medications and doses?

Are you allergic to any drugs?

Do you smoke?

No.

Drink Alcohol? 

No.

Partake of street drugs?

No.

Have a history of mental illness?

Not yet.

Charley: Um, Sir, My Mom knee hurt. 

Physician Assistant: Let's get you to the examination room so I can take a look.

About this time Brad shows up. He and Charley wait for me to come back.

Physician Assistant looks at my knee. Asks more questions. Leaves to write a prescription. Anti-inflammatory - that's about the best he can do for now. Tells me to make an appointment with the Doctor and wraps my knee with an ace bandage. Writes on the triage sheet that it was easy to determine the nature of the injury. Um...not from where I'm sitting. 

Nurse number 1 enters. 

What happened, Mrs. Palmer?

My right knee is hurting. I can barely walk on it. I felt something pop the other day and it's been hurting ever since.

She takes my blood pressure. Pulse. Listens to my breathing. 

What existing health problems so you have?

What are your current medications and doses?

Are you allergic to any drugs?

Do you smoke?

No.

Drink Alcohol? 

No.

Partake of street drugs?

No.

Have a history of mental illness?

Well, Not yet.

Hands me some prescriptions and follow-up orders. Tells me I can go.

Nurse number two appears with a wheelchair to escort me to back to the area where Charley 

Brad are waiting.

But first, takes my blood pressure. Listens to my heart. Takes my pulse.

Moments later, we're in the waiting area. There stands Charley with a cup of coffee he found in the lobby. "Here Mom, dis help in' you. Dis you fell butter."

He says to the nurse, "Call me!" Like, sure, that's gonna happen. 

Brad goes to get the car and arrives moments later. Charley turns to wave goodbye for a second time to the registration lady.

She gives him a little wave. Happy New Year! 

He waves back. Pappy knee year!

Charley: "Dwink you coffee, Mom."

I look into the cup. No Splenda. No cream. Just plain old black coffee. Not the way I like it. Not by a long shot. Still, I tip the cup and take a sip. I look into those concerned blue eyes of his, and wouldn't you know it? I've been to the hospital, been seen by a physician's assistant and two well-meaning nurses, and that cup of Joe is just what the Doctor ordered.

                                                        ***


Sherry McCaulley Palmer is the author of Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption

http://www.amazon.com/Life-With-Charley-Sherry-Palmer/dp/1937365700/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

God Things

For some reason, this post will not maintain a consistent font size throughout. That's okay though, as long as you have x-ray vision toward the end of the post. Though tiny, I mean it just as much as the rest of the post - maybe even more. God things come in good packages. Don't adjust your screen - that wasn't a typo. I meant to say God things. Chromosomes are God things.

Sometimes I look into the eyes of my precocious, funny, sweet-natured, son and wonder how the world got so lucky.  How did I get so lucky? God must have loved us all so much to have handed out those God things known as extra chromosomes. True, they aren't for everyone. Only a select few are to know the wonder. The forever innocence. The dance of Down syndrome. 

"But Sherry, you don't know the heartache of waiting 9 months for the perfect child only to have your hopes and dreams crushed by a An extra chromosome called Down Syndrome," you might say.

That's true. Those of you who know me already know my story, how Charley came to live with us. 
Just because I didn't wait for 9 months for the perfect baby doesn't mean I didn't want one. The thing is, in my opinion, I got one. 

When I read about that nut case in Denmark who thought it would benefit the world if those who have been blessed with an extra chromosome were eliminated from the human race, I wept. Then I went directly to Amazon and purchased Mardra Sikora's essay, "Arguing Eugenics." 

Want to know more about this heated issue? Mardra explains it in this well-written essay that is grounded in research and personal experience, Mardra Sikora's "Arguing Eugenics" extends beyond the subject of genetic testing (for the purpose creating a society free from the burden of Down syndrome) and into the heart of a world in danger of eliminating much more than an extra chromosome. As a writer and mother of a young adult with Down syndrome myself, I applaud Sikora's ability to lay out the facts while making the reader think with their hearts through the logic of her son Marcus.

"Arguing Eugenics"(You can find it on Amazon), takes a subject often written about in medical and technical terms, and fine tunes the lens to so those unfamiliar with Down syndrome can see clearly how whole communities would suffer the consequences of eliminating often the most compassionate among us. If I were to sum it up, I would wager to say that a world without Down syndrome is a world in danger of reducing itself to breathing in and out. While Sikora does not glamorize naïveté regarding special needs individuals, be it children with cancer or those who are born with spinal bifida, rather, she is a realist who sees the value in every human life, while charging the rest of us to do the same. What gives anyone the right to decide who has value and who does not? What gives anyone the right to decide that another human being is a burden? I agree with Sikora one-hundred percent, no one has the right to set that criteria. Not Denmark, not anyone.

I found Sikora's essay to be an invaluable piece of research delivered with wisdom. Mostly, however, I found it to be a fair synopsis of the lives faced everyday by special needs families. There is no perfect person. Aiming for a perfect world filled with only perfect people (which means a world without that extra chromosome) is no world I want to live in. I cannot imagine a world without the unconditional love of individuals with Down syndrome. Apparently, neither can Sikora.

There is a society, however that does not agree. If Denmark is knocking on that door, I say don't open it. Be very afraid. When one knocks others do too. Before we know it, Down syndrome will cease to exist, and so will life as we know it for our loved ones who are game changers.

The choice is ours. Want a perfect world? Step right up. Get your one-way ticket to Denmark. Personally, I'd rather count my God things. My chromosomes. Want a world of perfect unconditional love and acceptance? Then send in the Down. Rock on, Marcus. Be that agent of change that Sikora writes about. Be that God thing. And listen up folks, don't even think of sweeping this one under the rug. Sikora is in the house.

We adopted Charley twenty-four years ago at Christmas time. Believe me, there is nothing you could wrap and stick under the tree that could come close to the gift God game me that day. It was the perfect God-thing gift. Did we know what to expect? What to do? How do do it? No. 

But here's one thing I do know. When I count my blessings, I count God-things. That includes chromosomes.

Merry Christmas to me.

                                             

Sherry Palmer is the author of "Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption" (available at Amazon)

In the Advent if a Hootenanny

Rerunning this post from Christmas of 2012 in response to the Facebook question of what was my favorite John Knox Camp moment...it's something that couldn't be wrapped in a box, amd one of my favorite CharleyMoments ever...enjoy!

     Sometimes it must be hard to be Charley. Wanting to fit in. Sitting on the fence of different and same. If he stays on the side of different, the way is cleared for him to be a twenty-two year old boy in a man’s body, refusing to take a shower. If he stays on the side of sameness, wanting to be like everyone else, then what we have is a man in a man’s body, expected to take the shower like a man.

         What we forget is that his Down syndrome is the gateway to rising to the next level. The person who sat in the back seat asking, “Where goin’ Daddy?” is the same person who went with us to the Camp and Conference center for an Advent dinner Friday evening. He didn't want to go. Not for one moment did he want to put on a suit coat, and hang out with us old fogies. Typical.

            From the moment we arrived, he tried his best to mingle. Those of us who live with Down syndrome know only too well how the tangled tongue gets in the way of casual conversation, so he stood with chatting people, trying to act like them, until he couldn't stand it. “I got me wawet,” he blurted. But try as they might, they had no idea what he was saying, and quizzed him until he finally pulled out his wallet only to show them a picture of Harry, from Harry and the Henderson’s.

            So much for mixing. He plopped onto the couch and slumped into the cushions. I walked over to see if he was okay. “Dis bo-wing,” he said.  And why wouldn’t he be bored? The people at the party ddidn'tspeak CharleyEase, which made him odd man out. Meanwhile, I felt a lump in my throat and visited with other partygoers, while watching him out of the corner of my eye. Poor guy. Poor him. Poor man who wants to fit in.

            “He’s doing well,” someone said. “You aren’t kidding,” I said, because right about then in walked a blonde girl (we’ll call her Girl #1), and she was what Charley would call, “Hot.” And just like that, he had a date. Well, he had a dance. The music duo played their guitar and fiddle. Hootenanny, anyone?

            He thanked Girl #1 for the dance, and in my watchful silence I thanked her too, for saving an evening that had the potential to crush my son under the weight of the knowledge that he was and always will be Downs and that there’s not a thing he can do bout that.

Still, Girl #1 put a smile on his lips, and just as we thought that was that, in walked Girl #2, a brunette, who accepted his invitation to dance.

The next time I looked, he was dining at Girl #2’s table, following her to the buffet, helping himself to an iced tea he had no intention of drinking, and glaring at me like I’d better stop watching him or else. I tried not to look. I did. But what kind of mother would I be if I didn't give him a dirty look when he used his sleeve as a napkin?

            Meanwhile, Girl #2 spent the rest of the evening with him, and Charley was no longer odd man, he was simply a man.

Because different or same, when you have DS it doesn't matter which side of the fence you’re on, as long as the girl’s on your side.

Sherry McCaulley Palmer is the author of Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 

Season's Ringings

This is one of my favorite pictures of Charley. It's not the prettiest, but it is one that makes his Mama proud.

I posted this story in 2012 and well, I like it, so I'm posting it again. I like it because not only is it a picture of he and his Dad, it captures Charley stepping out of himself and doing something for somebody else. It also connects him to tne Kiwanis Club of Norwood as they ring the bells for the Salvation Army here in Knoxville. You must understand, this Kiwanis Club has all but adopted Charley and he's quite proud of that. Not only have they walked on his behalf in the Buddy Walk for the Down Syndrome Association of East Tennessee, they have also made him an honorary Kiwanian. And a very special honor it is.

So, here is the re-run of ringing the bells in 2012.

I call this one, "Season's Ringings..."

T’was the day of Black Friday and all through the town, the ringers were ringing, that holiday sound…

We see them every year, the bell ringers, the freezing few who stand outside the stores, reminding us shoppers that there are those in our communities who need our help.

When Charley was younger he’d try to talk the ringers out of their bells. “I me one,” he’d say, and Brad would give him a dollar to put in the bucket and then we’d be off on our way to celebrate the season.

He’s twenty-two now, and he still wants the bell. Every year he says, “I have it?” as he puts his dollar in the bucket.

So. Brad decided this year would be different. This year, Charley would get the bell. At least for a little while.

           

“Where goin’ Dad?”

“We’re ringing the bells,” Brad said.

“Why?”

“Because there are people whose needs will go unmet if we don’t. People are hungry, cold, and lonely. Bell ringing provides food and shelter. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about the loneliness.”

“Lonely?”

“Yeah, Charley, there are lots of people who have no one to share their lives and that makes them lonely. We have to reach out to them.”

“Okay, Dad,” Charley said, as he put on his red apron and picked up a bell.

Ring, ring. Ring-a-ding dingy. The two men in my life set out to keep people from being cold and hungry.

Now, if I recall from years past, the ringers stand still, and their arms go up and down, ringing. But at no time do I remember the ringer dancing and singing, but where tradition ends, Charley begins, and new traditions are born.

Dancing, ringing, singing, and informing everyone on their way into the store, “Need money here,” pointing to the bucket, doing the happy dance. That’s the Charleyway. 

Into the bucket went a dollar.

“Kanku,” Charley said. “Oh sir, money pwease.”  Plunk, another dollar.

One poor woman was heading into the store.

“Hello, Maam, you got money?”

“I’ve already given several times,” she said.

“Again!” he said. “Money fo da po, over here.”

Into her purse went her hand, and yep, out came a dollar.

Shopper after shopper, the teenage girls got a handshake or a hug (no one’s lonely on Charley’s corner). Even the kids gave him money. “Call me,” he’d say as they slapped him a high-five. Unless they didn’t give. Then he’d clear his throat and say, “Uh-hem. S’cuuuuse me, you got money?”

Brad told Charley that soliciting was one thing, hounding was another. “You are NOT to embarrass people into giving,” he said.

“I no bawassacud, Daddy. I winging da bell, dey got dollars.”

“But you’re not supposed to chase people down the sidewalk, Son…and you are NOT to hit them up twice.” The thing is, Charley would collect a dollar on their way into the store, and then talk them out of another on their way out.  One man admitted to stopping at the ATM because he didn’t want to come face to face with Charley. Not unless the happy dance followed.

Maybe it’s his Down syndrome innocence that opens the hearts around him. I don’t know. But I do know this; sometimes it takes a special needs person to remind you that if you are going to give, give with your whole body.

If you are going to ring, make sure the bell is heard.

And if you venture out this season, do it with a dollar in your pocket.

You never know where Charley might be lurking. I mean ringing.

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Sherry McCaulley Palmer is the author of Life With Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.