Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs Read Free

slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around . . . and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills . . . and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
    But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy . . . and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
    And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away . . . because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
    But . . . if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things . . . about Holland.
    Emily Perl Kingsley
     
    Emily Perl Kingsley is a mother, lecturer, and professional writer who has received seventeen Emmy awards for writing scripts and songs for Sesame Street. A frequent speaker on the subject of disability rights, she serves on a committee to improve the way people with disabilities are portrayed in the media. She and her son, Jason, who has Down syndrome, have appeared on Today, Good Morning America, and All My Children. Jason and his friend, Mitchell Levitz, are coauthors of Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome, just published in an updated edition by Harcourt, Inc.
     

In the Game
     
T he time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Robert Green Ingersoll
     
    High-school sports. It’s about the biggest thing that happens in our town of Verden, population six hundred. And sports are important in our family. Both of our sons were high-school athletes. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Lauren announced she was going out for the girls’ basketball team. But I was. At just five feet, one inch tall, our daughter’s lack of height wasn’t my worry.
    She has Down syndrome.
    My wife and I never told Lauren that she was different. We treated her like our other children. Same school. Same church camp. Same chores around the house. We didn’t want her to feel disabled or different because she had Down syndrome.
    “I’m gonna play basketball, Daddy.” Lauren ran to meet me when I came in from work. She flew into my arms and lingered long in my embrace, her brown curls tickling my chin. Unlike some sixteen-year-olds, Lauren was outwardly affectionate.
    “That’s nice, honey,” I replied automatically, and patted her shoulder. I figured she meant outside—on the driveway.
    Walking into the kitchen, I kissed my wife Laura on the cheek. She looked up from slicing tomatoes and studied me hard. We’d been married more than twenty years, so I usually could tell what she was thinking, but her furrowed brow indicated I’d missed something. Laura spoke slowly, her tone steady. “What Lauren’s trying to tell you is that she’s joining the girls’ high-school basketball team.”
    Just as my wife’s words sunk in, I heard Lauren behind me.
    “I’m gonna be a Lady Tiger,” she whooped, skipping into the room and throwing her arms in the air. She raced out of the kitchen to one of her favorite activities, watching cartoons on television.
    Everything that could happen flashed through my mind. Lauren’s reflexes were slow. What if she got injured during practice or trying to keep up with the other players? What if the other girls on the team failed to accept her? What if an insensitive spectator made fun of her? Or what if Lauren’s feelings got hurt because she spent most of her time on the bench?
    I was eager to discuss Lauren’s announcement with my wife that evening, but with four kids popping in and out, the time was never right. What should we do? Parenting seldom had clear-cut answers, and bringing up a child with a disability was an additional challenge.
    Hours later, with the kids in bed, I shanghaied Laura at the bathroom sink.