With Hands Wide Open.

At our twenty week ultrasound, we were made aware of a tiny blip in the pictures...a cyst on our baby's brain that could possibly be indicative of Down Syndrome.  We didn't tell too many people, we mostly just gave my body and hers four more weeks to grow and to change before we looked again, and we tried to take the news in stride.  We were told that it's fairly common, and it often tends to go away on its own.  It was most likely nothing.

So, in the meantime we waited and we trusted.
Not really worried and not overly pensive.  Just thoughtful.
We didn't talk of it often...we mostly just went about our days - per our usual norm.
And we ticked off the days until yesterday - when we could see her again onscreen.

But during the times when I did think about it...I mostly thought about my own Mother and her sister.
I know this term.  I know it well.

My Mama grew up with her baby sister - and for years she played games of tag, rode bikes, colored in coloring books, and played endless games of Hide and Seek with Sharon.  And then, my Mama grew up.  Although Sharon was twenty plus years older by the time I came around, all throughout my entire youth, I played those same exact games of tag with her...and rode bikes, colored in coloring books, and played endless games of Hide and Seek, as well.  And then, I grew up.  And now that Sharon's in her late fifties, I watch my three small boys living out those very same memories and playing those very same games of tag, riding bikes, coloring in books, and playing endless games of Hide and Seek, with this same, sweet girl.

Three generations - doing the same exact thing - with my Aunty Sharon, Forever Young.
Yes...I know this term very well.

Grampy knew someone would need to care for her.  Sixty years ago, all of the many options that are available to us today were non-existent.  In fact, the "proper and educated" term for Sharon back in the day was "Mongolian Idiot"...if you can even believe it.  So, my own father - groom to be at the age of twenty, and my Mother - always the protector of her baby sister, made the promise to Grampy that whenever the time was necessary - they would take her into their home and keep her as their own.

Whatever stage they might be at in life - newlyweds, with babies in tow, or entering their Golden Years - at the age of 20, my Mom and Dad assuaged a worried Daddy's heart and promised that they would take over the care and the responsibility whenever that needed day arrived.

That's love.  That's commitment.
That's bearing each other's burdens.
And that is doing "unto the least of these...."
This is the life I know.  These are the parents who raised me.

And I see the sacrifices they have made.  I see the toll it has sometimes taken.  As all of the rest of their friends are in the season of retirement and "empty nesting," Mom and Dad still, essentially, have a child at home.  One who needs forever reminders, one who talks incessantly, one who can't really be left alone for any period of time, one with some pretty crazy quirks, and one who, when her "preferred routine" is thrown, can really get her rhythm tied up into a knot.

And when times feel crazy and often a little "frazzle-y," - when some might think, or even say, that Sharon would thrive in a group home - I see the commitment, the care, the fulfilled childhood promise, and the hands and feet of Jesus lived out day after day through the tangible acts of love and care from my Mother and my Father.

And, don't get me wrong ---
I also see the gift of Sharon...

I see one who by all worldly standards might be considered "the least of these."  One who, while on Earth at least, does not have much of any kind of "treasure" to claim as her own, who will never marry, who will never have children of her own, who will never own a car or a home, and one who, though she is thirty years my senior, with all the faith of a child, would blindly follow me over the edge of a cliff if ever I asked her to.  I see one who is completely dependent upon the care and the goodwill of others for her safety and for her survival, for her food and for her clothing - and one who is still so much like a little girl in so very many ways...

And I know - in my heart of hearts, I know - that her standing in Heaven will be greater than mine. Sharon, with her faith like a child, with her love that has no conditions, and with her forgiveness never ending.  She will be great.

She already is.

And so today... with a screen showing a perfect little head holding a perfect little brain with nary a cyst to be seen anywhere... we are thankful...

And we are merely left to wonder. 

If we had been asked to do the same as my Grandparents were asked to do, and what my own parents continue to do to this day....if I was to be entrusted with a life that carried one extra chromosome 21...one sweet girl child of my own - forever young...

I hope I would have accepted it with as much grace and dignity as my own parents did and continue to do to this day.

With hands wide open...I pray I would have embraced the gift.
Because certainly, even if she were to teach me half as much as Sharon has....
she would have made me a better person because of it.

Sweet London Faith - whatever the outcome - you are and always will be perfection to me...