The funny thing about the future, at least for me, is I tend to treat it as an impossibility.
When Jonathan was little, and his end-of-July birthday rolled around, as it inevitably would, I’d say to him, “How old are you going to be, 25?” To which sometimes I’d receive a pudgy cheeked smile accompanied by his classic hum, and other times, narrowed eyebrows and a stern, “No, Gaga! I -fill-in-appropriate-age-here!!”
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But now he has actually turned 25 and I…just don’t know what to say.
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I follow a lot of new mothers of infants-toddlers-children-adolescents who have Down syndrome on social media and can’t help but react to their photos, videos, and musings with a mixture of emotions.
The love they exhibit and way they uninhibitedly embrace all the good which is Down syndrome gives me hope for our world.
The cute pictures of adorable almond-shaped eyes, videos of joy in music and laughter, and all the other fine, day to day details of life with a child who has Down syndrome, make me smile, reminiscing on a little boy I once knew who exhibited the, believe it or not, same exact mannerisms.
If I’m being completely transparent, there is another feeling which creeps upon me, and it’s one of a questioning nature. I wonder what these posts will look like as the years drive on beyond the simple toddler years and into the more challenging school years and so on. And sometimes I also wonder what my photo stream might look like at this point if things like Instagram had been available when Jonathan was growing up.
I hope it would be a beautiful, yet simple, representation of the ever changing, better with age, growing in humor, ability, and love, and countless other things all of which make up the incredible person Jonathan has become.
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