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Down syndrome,Faith

“I Really Want to Get Married”

posted on : July 5, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

My daughter, who has Down syndrome, turned 18 last week. She proudly announced that she’s an adult now. She’s aware of a lot of things in life. She watches all the preteen shows on TV and Netflix and is a sucker for anything to do with romance. She oohs and aahs when there is a wedding in a show. She loves it when they hold hands and kiss. She dreams of her own wedding and finding her true love.

A few year ago we were driving in the car together. She was staring out the window and said, “I really want to get married.” She had said this many times before and has said it many times since. But, there was something in her voice that tugged at my heart that particular time. Even though she’s pretty bright, she’s not capable of being independent, let alone married. Getting married in this life is not in the cards for her.

I have told her that someday she will get married in heaven. She will have a beautiful wedding and her family will be there and she will be very happy. She asks me questions about it frequently. Questions like, “Will I have a beautiful dress?” “Will I have flowers?” “Who is going to be my husband?” I try to answer these questions honestly with the little knowledge I actually have about heaven. I tell her, “I’m sure you will have a beautiful gown.” I don’t know if she’ll have flowers but I have told her, “I’m sure your wedding will be just how you want it.” When she asks about her husband I tell her, “I don’t know who you are going to marry, but Heavenly Father does and I’m sure He has someone wonderful in mind for you.” She’ll clap her hands with joy at the prospect of it all, but really, these answers just satisfy her temporarily. She still wants to get married in this life.

She has seen her sisters and brothers get married. She has seen them having children, and she wants the same joy that creating a family brings. It seems to be inborn in her to want to find a true love, a soul mate. I tell her that not everyone gets married in this life, but that hasn’t deterred her. She really wants to get married.

I haven’t told her this because she’s really not capable of understanding it, but I have been thinking about how there are a lot of things people want in this life that will never happen. People have problems they would like solved. Some have health issues they would like cured. Many want to be free from addictions, have enough money to meet their needs, or have family problems go away. Some people yearn for children. I think we can look at society, the world at large, and want for things that seem like will never happen. All of us, in some way, want for something that will probably never happen.

That seems to be part of life. To recognize that there are things that will not be in this life, and to hope for better things in the world to come. How do we deal with life when it doesn’t give us what we want most? When our hearts seem to be breaking and our souls are stretched to their limits? For me, faith in Jesus Christ and hope in His promises are sometimes the only things that I can fall back on. I trust in His absolute knowledge and power. Joseph Smith said that to have faith in God we need to know and trust in the Nature and Character of God. We need to know that He loves us, is mindful of us and trust that He knows what is best. To know that He knows what is going on, and if we stay faithful despite our circumstances, He will make all things right. I love the scripture found in Revelations 21:4 which says, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. neither shall there be any more pain…” And so, with this promise we go forward knowing that God always fulfills His promises. We go forward, knowing there are things that we want, that we will never have in his life.

My daughter will not marry in this life, she will not have what she wants most now. But I am sure she will marry in the next world. I am sure because I know and trust in the Nature and Character of God. He will wipe away her tears and hold her close, and her pain will be gone. She will have what the faithful inherit.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2017/04/songs-sung-and-unsung?lang=eng

Parenting

Stress in Parenting

posted on : November 17, 2017 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 4 Comments

You can imagine that with eight children it was often noisy and stressful at our house.  None of my children were quiet, laid back people and they learned to talk louder than the other person in the family talking in hopes that they would be heard above the crowd. Often when I would be dealing with one child I would have 2-4 other children trying to talk to me at the same time.  I did try to explain many times to them the concept of waiting for their turn to talk to me, of how it actually took longer to help their brother of sister because they were talking to me too and so they ended up waiting longer, and just the politeness not talking to others until they were finished with what they were doing.  That being said, my children always thought that what they needed or wanted to talk to me about was more important than what their brother or sister could possibly have wanted to talk about (gratefully they have grown out of that illusion).  Even though it got better when they became adults, we’re still a noisy group.  Often it was very stressful in trying to handle the needs of so many people and some serious problems but I learned a technique that helped me in those situations and in other hard to handle things.  I would stop and ask myself in the midst of the problem if I was doing the best I could.  If the answer was yes then somehow just stopping to take the mental check helped me to de-escalate and I was able to handle the situation much more calmly.  If the answer was no, and I always knew instantly if I was doing the best I could, then I would take a deep breath and think about what I could do differently to regroup and then go forward, and the amazing thing is this only took a few seconds to do.  Sometimes I needed to apologize and sometimes I needed to get rid of the extraneous distractions to focus better on the problem. Sometimes there was no immediate solution but I was able to handle it better because of my little stop/check technique.