Door to a Parent’s Heart

In the fellowship of parenting, we often sit in the family room, literal or virtual, laughing and swapping stories. We discuss bedtime routines and college savings plans. We share laundry advice and swap coupons for diapers and apple juice. But every once in a while, someone opens up the door to her heart and motions to us. She has something important to show us. Something we need to see:

Over the phone, a long distance connection, I told my father that the baby I was carrying, my third and last, most probably had Down syndrome. His response was simple and heavy. “That stinks,” he said. I felt his words, the weight of his disappointment with a hint of frustration, the kind a parent suffers when they can’t fix your boo boo for you. So much wrapped up tightly in those two words. I cried and cried. Not because he said it, but because I felt it so strongly. It did stink. In fact, it sucked. When my baby’s body came bursting out of mine and popped to the surface of the water into my waiting arms, I saw it. There was a chunky roll on the back of the neck. “Down syndrome,” it whispered to me. Two words. I did not cry when I heard them...

The Unknown Contributor has opened the door to her heart. She has something important we need to see. Read "Snapshot." Recommended by Ann Kroeker. Image by Ann Kroeker.