Anything Can Be

Anything can be.

Anything.

Tonight is proof.

5,445 days ago a little baby was born.

He had Down Syndrome...a heart defect and later leukemia.

5,445 days ago I didn't know a thing.

I was biased and prejudiced.

Flattened and broken.

I believed the mustn'ts and the don'ts.

And the universe handed me a child...and his soul whispered to me,

"Anything can be."

I didn't know what to do or how to be.

But my older two kids did.

They knew how to love and they poured it on thick.

They were delighted with this baby filled with shouldn'ts and won'ts.

They knew the secret:

Anything Can Be.

Slowly.

Following the path of love and the glittered steps of preschoolers who knew best, I learned.

I learned that mothering this new baby was the same as mothering those other two...

love, belief, faith, being there....day in and day out.

*****

Recently I read this essay about wishing out loud.

I loved it.

In it, Mitchel encourages you and me to: "Share your wishes freely to anyone who will listen."

I've been doing that for awhile.

Wishing out loud.

LOUD.

Please, please, please let all children learn alongside each other.

LOUD.

Back in 1999, when Patrick was born, honestly, it felt like my wishing flame pilot light had gone out.

I didn't know what to wish for.

I felt alone.

Isolated.

I had no road map...and for someone who used to pour over the giant world atlas, that felt weird.

What does this new world of mine look like?

Who is with me?

Am I as alone as I feel?

*****

5,445 days have gone by.

The baby has gotten bigger, grown stronger, and is sitting on the edge of manhood.

He's reading, writing, passionate, funny, exuberant and his very own self.

Incomparable.

Inexplicable.

Indefinable.

Miraculously irreplaceable.

I could never have known his place that he alone would carve out for himself in this world of ours.

I could never picture his truth.

All I could do was live alongside him and show up each day...learning the lessons meant for me alone.

5,445 lessons...perfectly circular...perfectly balanced.

Tonight it all came together.

Tonight Patrick graduated from 8th grade...from a Catholic school.

He's the first in the diocese to be fully included in the regular classroom,
learning alongside his typical peers,
attending the same school as his big brother and sister.

The first.

In blue cap and gown he walked in holding a lit candle.

Light in the darkness.

Another reminder.

Anything can be.

He strode up to receive his diploma.

He sat back down and listened to the award winners.

Award winners for art, math, science, social studies, PE, literature.
His name wasn't called.
It didn't matter.
The award for most improved in Computer Class came and his name was announced.
He popped up -- eager to be singled out and awarded.
It felt good.
We moved on.

Suddenly, the teacher mentioned a special award.
She spent time explaining the award.
She detailed the recipient.
Describing attitude, effort and perseverance...lessons taught, day in, day out.
Patrick's name was the one on the award.

And like a crazy dream, he leaped up to receive the award
as his classmates cheered.
His classmates stood up.
The audience stood up...
the room transformed into a full standing ovation
I just sat there...
until the energy of the room pulled me up and I turned to my mom and asked,
"Is this real?"

I couldn't take it in.
Couldn't really make sense of it.

Anything can be.

This child of mine -- so broken to the outside world -- was fully seen, fully recognized,
fully accepted on this day, in this moment, at his school.
He was worthy.
He was good enough.
In fact, he was admired and awarded.

And in this moment, in this dream-like world, we were one.
Every single one of us in that big church belonged.
We were valued.
We were loved.

The message was loud and clear.
You, Patrick Foraker, have taught us something.
Something we didn't know until you showed us.

There will always be mustn'ts and can'ts.
Don'ts and wont's.
None of it matters, friend.
Anything can be.

So today I am grateful for this moment of hope and encouragement.
Profoundly grateful to the many, many encouragers who met us on this path.
Grateful to Sarah and Steve and Ashley and the many priests, principals, teachers, aides and staff who found a way to make anything be real.
Grateful for ordinary holiness, sacred acceptance, and this moment right now.

Anything can be.

Dreams come true.
Share your wishes out loud.
Wait.

Watch what happens in a few thousand days.

Happy Graduation, Patrick!

Sixty Years Later...

God, I love this man...who uses intercourse and injustice in the same quote and rocks it like no other? MLK.

Here's a trick question:

Do you know what Supreme Court decision was remembered yesterday?

Have you ever heard of Brown vs. The Board of Education?

1954 is when it all went down.

Sixty years later we are still talking about it and yes, still celebrating the decision.

Sixty years ago segregation got the boot.

Sixty years ago.

Sixty years ago a grandson of a slave, Thurgood Marshall, stood in front of the United States Supreme Court and argued against allowing segregation in schools to continue.

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed.

--> SEPARATE BUT EQUAL HAS NO PLACE! <--

Do you hear that?? It has no place.

Sorry to yell but this is something that educators are still talking about.

And I wanna know why.

Sixty.freaking.years.

Today, of course, thanks to Thurgood, it is taboo to suggest that a child of color should be removed to a separate learning area just because of the color of his skin.

But that doesn't stop the system from having an overabundance of children of color identified as needing special education services and then removing them from the classroom that way.

Segregation is alive and well and yes, educators, very well-intentioned ones, try to use the whole separate but equal idea in a subtle way.

They say things like:

Your child will receive special services in the separate classroom.

We can meet your child's needs better in a smaller classroom.

The "educational gap" is too big and your child needs to go to a different classroom.

It's all crap.

SIXTY years ago it was decided.

We all get to learn alongside each other.

Everyone.

In the same classroom.

I sure wish schools would get the memo.

No special room.

No special class.

Nothing special...just the regular class.

That's all we want.

All our kids need.

We have thirty years of educational research that support the sixty year old decision.

We know what works.

Separate classrooms don't.

Engagement, technology, teaching with supports, visual aids, music, clear, specific feedback

these are the things that matter.

It really isn't hard.

We just need access.

Sadly, people with intellectual disabilities get denied access to their neighborhood classrooms all the time. 

Still, 60 years later.

So I'm writing this as a message in a bottle.

Thurgood went to battle.

He had the strength of the Constitution and common sense on his side.

He won -- unanimously -- 60 years ago.

If he can win,

so can we.

Fight the system.

Demand to have your child placed alongside his typical peers.

Don't back down.

Share the stories of success.

Follow the ripple of inclusion.

Watch your child grow and thrive.

If he doesn't.

Don't give up.

Tweak and adjust.

Believe.

It can happen. Successfully.

The Supreme Court is on our side.

Federal Law is on our side.

We are on the side of love, acceptance, tolerance and inclusion.

That's the side that matters.

Be their voice.

Speak truth to power.

Watch with wonder as miracles happen.

That's the grace-in-the-ordinary...it's right in front of us.

Thanks to Thurgood.

Being Catholic

I'm Catholic.

Yesterday, I had a chance to practice my faith and deepen my faith and share in it with Caroline as she prepares to make her 

Holy Communion next week-end.

We had a Bread Retreat for the entire second grade.

We made bread.

Simple. Humble. Delicious.

We said a blessing over every single ingredient:

"Bless this flour.  May it remind us of all who have helped us come so far.  

We pray for all people who work to make the world a better place."

"Bless this sugar.  May it help us to be sweet in our words and actions toward others."

"Bless this water -- a sign of our baptism.  May we always remember that we are God's children."

"Bless this milk.  It reminds us of our first food -- mother's milk.  Bless our mothers who love us and care for us each day."

"Bless this salt.  Life first began in the sea.  May we show respect for Life in how we treat all of God's creations."

"Bless this wheat flour -- it reminds us that change is hard.  The wheat had to grow in hot sun, be cut, ground and milled.  Sometimes we also struggle to do what is right.  Give us strength Lord."

Even the pans got a blessing:

"Bless these pans that give bread shape.  God has shaped us from the earth and love.  

May we remember that He is always there to help us and love us."

Honestly, the whole day is a lesson in being grateful for the most essential and simple items that we take for granted and barely notice.

It's humbling and beautiful and it fills me up for a good long while...like a cold, icy drink on that ragged, hot day...I am so so good after this retreat.

Caroline brought home her bread, eager to share it with all of us.

We had to wait until John got home from a business trip so we waited a day to break the bread together.

And in one day...a tiny blip of a few hours...

our priest was arrested and put in jail for statutory rape of a minor.

And that is being Catholic too.

(And I'm not being ironic.)

We are in this together.  There is no us vs. them.  We are all us. 

Always.

Bad things, terrible things, heartbreaking things are all around us.

Really good people make really bad choices every day.

People who you count on, disappoint.

Hell, we disappoint ourselves and the very people we love dearly, constantly.

It's messy being human.

It's hard to have moral courage day in and day out...damn near impossible.

It's shameful and heartbreaking and sometimes just plan sad.

But then we get moments like this:

And it all becomes really clear.

We only have each other...for a limited time at best.

Even when it's messy, scary, dangerous, or maybe especially when it is those things, 

we need to cling to each other.

Cling to the ancient wisdom that is our faith.

Cling to the holy words of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.  

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

Oh, Divine Master, grant that I may

not so much seek to be consoled, as to console.

To be understood, as to understand.

To be loved, as to love.

For it's in giving that we receive.

And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned.

And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Somehow.some.way.we find comfort that this messy crazy world has been just like this for thousands of years...full of broken people doing their best  -- and failing quite often.

Still in this world of sadness, disappointment, loss, ignorance and hatred there is the beauty.  

Unmistakeable beauty.

It is full to the brim with miracles like water and salt and sugar and love and redemption and second chances and new life...

over and over again.

For some people, faith seems ridiculous.

Laughable.

For me, especially in times like these...it's the only thing that makes sense.

It is a comfort to know that others have been right here in the middle of their messy, broken lives and found a way.

It's a comfort to rest in the words, the prayers and the basic truths that are my faith.

I'm going to wait for the light.

It's coming.

I have faith.

Until then, I'll make my peace with the dark.

For that's what makes the light even more beautiful.

Tea for Two

"Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp."

-- The Minister of Leaves

A tiny taste of heaven.


Do you have a secret place?
A spot you unknowingly find your way to when you need a rest or need to take a deep breath.
I have several secret spots that refuel me, that calm me, that bring it all back to the real stuff that matters.

When the world feels too crazy, I make my way to one of these places and
s-t-o-p
and breathe...big, long, deep oxygen-rich breaths.

It's not so serious.
No to-do list is that important.
It's all going to get done anyway...
who cares if it's not all done at the exact perfect time in the exact perfect way.

This, this right here -- is way more important.

And that's how I was feeling last Saturday.

I had chores to complete.
Work to finish.
Emails to return.
And a presentation to get done.

None of it mattered.

I woke up on Saturday and decided to share my secret place.

Caroline was ready.

So I zoomed out of my pj's (which really isn't-Saturday-morning-like-me), showered and got ready and whispered to Caroline...
"I'm taking you someplace special this morning, just me and you.  Will you get dressed?"

She needed no prompting...she got herself together in a flash.

We completed a tiny subset of the regular Saturday stuff that must get done and headed out...on bikes.

*****

[Now I must add here that I've been wrestling with the constant intrusion of my cell phone.  I've been feeling like it's been owning me rather than the other way around.  And then a tiny little seed sprouted in my mind...I know it shouldn't be too crazy of a thought...but sadly, it was for me...I decided to make my cell phone optional.  I was going to make Saturday (and maybe even Sunday if I got good at it!) my cell-phone-free day. And since that little thought just kept going around and around in my head, this very Saturday seemed like the day to try.  So, I told John that I was going to be out of touch for a few hours, left my cell phone on the counter and away we went.]

*****

It was the weirdest sensation!
I felt naked and free and vulnerable and information-less and
finally, finally,
blessedly undivided.

I could attend to this moment, right now.

Distraction-less.

Focused.

Centered.

Attention squarely on the important things of the moment:
this little girl, seven turning eight,
what table to choose in this darling garden patio?
what tea?
should we get a scone or another type of pastry or the fruit cup?
what is Devonshire cream anyway?

how are you?
what have you been noticing? or thinking? or hoping?

I began to notice her eyes;
the way she fashioned words;
the grown-up way she was sitting;
the way she perused the menu.

Time, so often my enemy, stood still.

Without my phone to capture the moment,
I took snapshots in my mind.
Froze it...right there.
Noticed the sunlight.
The tiny purple zigzag fringed flowers in a tiny vase on the table.
Her eagerness to watch the sand timer count out the three minutes -- the perfect amount for steeping the peach tea that we had chosen.
Her willingness to pour our tiny glass chiseled cups carefully full of the golden elixir.

We marveled.
We sniffed and savored and stopped.

We giggled at the dollhouse sized wooden spoons that were what allowed the Devonshire cream and jam to make it to our scones.
We talked and talked.

It goes without saying that my secret place has become her secret place...and, as is the worry with sharing secrets, she loved it so much she wants everyone to go there.
Immediately she asked if Daddy and Patrick could come next time.
How about her cousins?
Maybe this was a place for a birthday party?

I just smiled...and told her sometimes secret places have to be kept quiet and shared carefully.

My answer to every question was Cheshire Cat confusing...maybe...we'll have to see how it goes...
maybe.

Right now I want to hold it close and keep it tucked out of sight.

But I know it won't last long...
she's itching to go again...trying for a second Saturday in a row.

I know she loved the tea and the garden and the Devonshire cream but I really think she's asking for more undivided attention.

I'm going to honor that request...try even harder...and I admit, I've done a poor job this week.
But, there's always Saturday.

Glorious Saturday:
 A pot of tea
Some denim blue eyes
Time, lingering and lounging like a friend,
And the supreme comfort of really being present
as my present.

Thank You, Monet!

"I hope some day to meet God, 

because I want to thank Him for the flowers."  

--Robert Brault

Caroline in a field of white and purple daisies.

It's that time of year, or maybe it's because we just had earth day, or maybe it's because I spent some time at my favorite place, the beach, but I have this beautiful planet on my heart.


No matter where you walk, right now it's showing off.

Taken as I was driving because I was so so utterly blown away by the fleeting majesty.

In my heart, I want to be a photographer, if only to capture the momentary glory and remember...
to press it on my heart in hard times and times of deep sadness...
to know that right around me -- always within reach --
is this.

I have an irrational fondness for these tiny, tiny daisies that sprout up only at this time of year amid the regular grass...as if trying to blend in...and finding it an impossible task:

We have wild mustard blooming and those magical California poppies and lupines and iris and roses...always the roses.

I can't help myself.  

I'm in love...with this earth, with the non-stop wonders that surround me... 

with the everyday holiness.

It's sacred.

Found at a Brownie meeting...in between skit practice and singing campfire songs.

One of my most recent favorite books had the dad thinking aloud with his terminally ill teen-age daughter about our world:
"Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.  That's what I believe...I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed."
The Fault In Our Stars -- John Green


I agree!
It's pretty obvious it wants to be noticed...

This happens every, single day.  No.big.deal.

How do we stop noticing??
How can we not tear up with the beauty?
I guess it's called taking it for granted...
but I want to stop and notice.
I want to fill my heart up with the every day glory that is only here in this moment, right now.

*****

I recently taught an art lesson to a bunch of 2nd graders.  We went to our local arboretum and looked at some bridges and wild flowers and just stopped and got quiet and paid attention.

I told them that Claude Monet painted the same bridge in London, the Waterloo Bridge, over 100 times.
This took my breath away.
I showed them the same bridge painted on three different days, years apart by Monet...
one was a gorgeous pinkish hue, fused with early light;
one was bluish in tone with a hint of fog...the blue, a light turquoise with some green tints as well;
one was a lavender, dusky and melancholy and utterly breath-taking.

I've been thinking so much about Monet's wisdom.

Nothing is the same.

Each day it is a bit older, a bit more lush, or broken in, a bit more overgrown or mowed or the tree limbs are bare or that flower is just springing up or the light plays a different way.

His passion for seeing the very same scene with different eyes has transformed me.

Seals and Crofts said it best:
"We may never pass this way again."

Just for today, let's notice.

Falling Down

Caroline loves to roller blade.

Most mornings she puts them on first thing and as soon as she is home from school, 

they are back on her feet.  

She's content to roll around the kitchen and living room in and endless loop.

She roller blades outside in the back yard.  

She insists that it is "blading" and always corrects me if I ask her to take her skates off.

She eats dinner with them on.

She does homework with them on.

She reads books or watches TV and forgets that she has something attached to her body.

She's a wee bit obsessed.

Her happiest time of the day is when we walk our dog, Buddy.

She can rollerblade through the neighborhood at supersonic speed.

She hunches over like a roller derby queen and speeds up and goes as fast as her risky self will allow --

which is awful fast to an onlooking mom.

She's gotten good...like I said, they're beginning to just be a part of her body.

She is now practicing tricks -- like jumping over cracks in the sidewalk, or doing the
ice-skating maneuver of the one-leg-in-the-air-glide.

She's confident and proud.

And then a tiny stick got in her way.

She loves this one driveway we pass each day.

It has a big U-shaped driveway and she whizzes up one side of the U and spins and
whizzes down the other the side at top notch speed.  

One time she did it 11 times back and forth...even I was getting dizzy.

And then the unthinkable happened...she bit the dust.

It wasn't a horrible wipe-out as wipe outs go -- but she got a sizable scrape on the side of her belly and nothing else...but a big ole sense of what just happened?

She was shocked.  Stunned.  

Mortified and mad.

She was quiet as she roller-bladed home -- defeated -- and I couldn't yet tell just how injured she was so I didn't push.

At the injury inspection I made a comment about how it wasn't that bad...but she couldn't even respond.

Big, heaving, gasping cries came over her.

Tears and more tears.

I tried to cajole her into the shower...no go.

Tried to be soothing and understanding...not working.

I tried the brush-off -- really, kid, you're good...complete flop.

Then I just picked her up and undressed her and plopped a wailing, inconsolable kid into the tub.

She resisted the water, not wanting her scrape to sting, but I insisted, 

which only amped up the situation.

I noticed her forehead...speckled with red splotches like she used to get as an infant after crying really hard...and I tried to tell her it was all going to be okay...back to soothing as an option.

Finally, she leaned back into the water and let it all comfort her and released that soggy sigh that all people release after that final burst of crying, but somehow with kids it tends to be the checkered flag.  We made it.

I tried to help her notice it..."Look, Caroline, you made it over the hump.  You're going to be OK."

A tiny voice and tear-filled bue eyes looked up, 

"I think it was a stick." she reflected.

"It might have been, baby.  But, you need to know that the reason you like roller-blading is partly because of this right here.  You enjoy it because you feel excited.  You know you could fall down.  You accept that part...and you love when you don't."

"But sometimes you do."

"And then, you just have to get back up...and try again."

She slowly got out of the tub.

I snuggled my fresh-from-the-tub-girl -- a treat that rarely happens anymore.

I held her for the briefest of moments and treasured this chance.

I'm so grateful to be able to help her up and comfort her...

I hate it when they fall...

any of them.any.time.

But isn't that where so much of the real learning happens?

We all fall down.

We must get back up.

There really is no choice.

We can cry and scream and blame the stick but it doesn't matter...we will fall.

It's what happens after the fall that matters.

He's Not Broken, Your System Is

"You are here to allow the divine purpose of the universe to unfold.  
That's how important you are!" -- Eckart Tolle

So, my kid is graduating 8th grade.
He's moving to high school.
Leaving the only school he's known for 9 years.

He's excited about it.
He's ready for an adventure and the thrills of high school that he has watched happen with his brother and sister: proms, dances, dates, football games, hanging out with friends --
independence.

His speech teacher that he has had since he was two said it best:
"He's excited because every change he has had up until now has made his world bigger and better."
He thinks change is good.

He's upset to say good-bye to his beloved friend and aide, Sarah.
He's not too sure of how to get to his new school...or what to do once there.
He's trying to picture it and he can't.
But overall, he's pretty excited for it.

Then we went to his first hour of formal testing...with a stranger...who gave him candy...and let him quit when he said he didn't know the answers anymore.
Would she let any typical kid quit??
Is that being nice...or is that having low expectations?
Is this test just a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Sure feels like it.

My kid needs to enter a system...a formal system that specializes in disability...a system that prefers to segregate...
and list all of the things Patrick can't do.

I look at all of the things he can do.

A system that wants to prove its value and needs to keep perpetuating this myth of can't.
The myth of "experts".

I'm the expert on my kid.

I don't need a special ed credential to know what's the right placement for him.
It's the one he's had since kinder -- fully included, with support, in his class with his typical peers,
100% of the time.
That's been working for nine years.

On May 1st, I'm going to sit in on a meeting filled with strangers...who will list all of the various gaps in my son's knowledge.

The gaps identified, by the way, from tests that are created for people with 46 chromosomes, not 47.
They're "standardized" but for what kind of kid??
Someone with autism, sensory processing disorder, cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome?
Is this a one-size-fits-all test??
If so, how can it measure anything meaningful?


They'll be overly polite.
They'll make comments about how charming Patrick is.
They'll smile...and act as if they know what's best for him educationally.
When they don't have a clue.

If I could, I would dismantle this system.

All children would start in their neighborhood school, in the typical classroom.

No one would have to earn their way in.

I'd train every single teacher in the country in good teaching practices...teaching teachers how to be engaging, how to mix up their class time with active/passive learning, how to monitor and give meaningful feedback, how to use technology to teach, reteach and assess for understanding.
I'd encourage creativity and cooperation and constructivist learning.

If every teacher knew how to extend a lesson and scaffold a lesson and offer support to all learners, we wouldn't need special ed...
which by the way, isn't freaking special.at.all.

Imagine all the money we could save if we didn't test and create goals and retest every three years.
Not to mention the time.
Precious time being wasted so the system can prove over and over how valuable it is...
when the results STINK.

75% of people with intellectual disabilities are UNemployed. 
--> 75% <--

Completely intolerable.

3/4 of the people in your system do not end up working...
hello...
why do you hold on to the outdated (and educationally false) notion that separate is equal??

25% of students with intellectual disabilities are fully included in school.
and...
25% of people with intellectual disabilities are employed.
Isn't that an amazing coincidence??

Does it take a graduate degree to connect those dots?

Why do we have this system again??

I know I will have parents tell me amazing stories of amazing special ed teachers doing heroic things...
even a broken clock is right twice a day.

There are good people...terrific educators...heroes...in a terrible system.

I don't want to dismantle the people.
Just the system.

I want to crush the oppressive bureaucracy of deficit thinking.

A system that itself is disabled --
blinded to the many things the student can do, in favor of underlining and in bold all of the many things the student can't do.

 I view Patrick as a violet living in a daisy world.

He isn't a broken daisy.

He's rare and beautiful and exceptional in his violet-ness, just hanging out with the daisies.
Our garden is better for the variation in the beauty.
Our world is better with it...it is the very definition of grace-in-the-ordinary.

Can you see his violet beauty?
Or do you see a broken daisy?
He's not the one who's broken...your system is.

"Peace requires everyone to be in the circle -- wholeness, inclusion."  -- Isabel Allende