The Joy of Life by Kids with Down Syndrome

 
Can you see and hear, and touch the joy in this photo of Jeff who is being treated to a ride on one of his very favorite things?!? Love of Life is his "shout-out" for the rest of the world to find the holy in the ordinary!~~~About a month ago, Susane Ashline wrote in her Democrat and Chronicle, "Mom's World" column about being at a Disney show at a resort. The staff was rounding up kids who would briefly go on stage later that night. While waiting for her own 5 year-old son's turn to practice, Susan became "wrapped up watching a little girl with a sandy blonde mop of hair and baby fat cheeks. She had Down syndrome. More than a dozen kids were practicing bit parts, but she was doing her own thing. When staffers talked to her, she talked to someone else. When the others were walking in line, she was jumping off steps. I wondered how this would play out on stage later. I worried for her. After several scene changes, to the tune of 'Under the Sea,' the girl with Down Syndrome entered stage left with a dozen other resort children; but she blew on like a tiny cyclone. She grabbed onto the adult actor playing Sebastian the Crab. I tensed. The other girls walked in a circle around the Little Mermaid, but the girl with Down syndrome jumped on the prop carrying the mermaid, and the actress' expression turned anxious. Just as quickly, the girl jumped off and went twirling around the mermaid, not in circles, but in her own designs, flapping arms and kicking legs. She spun around the floor, landing with her toes dangling precariously off the edge of the stage, teetered for one breathless moment, and then was off to a fast-rhythm, pounding beat, spinning and fluttering, twirling and floating; hypnotic, oblivious, carefree. She brought down the house -- 600 hands together in thunderous applause, and shouting and whistling. She wasn't the most graceful little girl on stage, but she was the most beautiful -- uninhibited, blissful. And the music rang out:'We got the spirit; you got to hear it, under the sea.'" Susan Ashline caught that utter joy so many people with Down syndrome display. I thank her for writing this column so others can see that beauty!