Sabbath Messages | Sabbath Message: Aug. 21, 2004
Good Sabbath
August 21, 2004 Many years ago I met and loved a young daughter of my closest friends,
Les and Ruth Goodman. Suzie was blessed and cursed with Down's Syndrome,
which is a chromosome disorder (information site: www.ACDS.org).
Recently, she passed away, at age 50, and Les suffered a stroke immediately
afterwards. I had been afflicted with a somewhat more minor broken arm and
was off writing for several weeks and hadn't written to Les or Ruth expressing
my feelings. Now I write this, after having caught up with them, finding
how they were, and some of the last weeks of Susan. (Les is almost fully
recovered and back to playing golf with some oldsters, but with a mind that
is still filled with as good a story-telling
talent as is possible.)
She had lain in bed, evolving through three years of the ravages of Down
and Alzheimer's, being visited each day by her parents, listening to her
only word by this time, "hello", knowing the end was coming and
reflecting on her life. My memory went back to the first times I had spent
any quality time with her, in Florida, where Dad was working. We had an instant
affection for each other, though many youngsters who suffer the affliction
are light-hearted and easily victimized by predators. We had fun talking,
as she loved any gift that I had brought her. She had the typical syndromes
of round face with full cheeks, but her friendship and personality shone
through. Ruth was overjoyed that Sue and I got along so wonderfully and Les
always was appreciative.
Years before I had become the professional advisor to a group of parents
of adult Exceptional Children, with limited brain capacity; the parents were
very anxious about what would happen to their "child" after they
were gone. It is one thing to be a child and another to be an adult with
childish limitations. It was a severe task that fully engaged my compassion
and which was almost impossible to solve, back then.
I have much quarrel with God about human nature and its half-brute, half-angel
capacity, where choice is supposed to be the greater blessing by God. But
what choice is there for the exceptional child, who carries this chromosome
deficiency? The choices are with the parents, always so difficult and so
filled with the guilt of "did I do enough, could I have done more,"
a struggle that precedes the passing of the childish adult. That question
haunts parents no matter how wonderfully devoted they have and had been.
This is only one of the reasons why I love the Goodmans and pray for them
each day.
God, thank You for Suzie Goodman
A good woman
From a fine Mother and Dad
Who will never stop loving her
and now her memory.
Your reasons are always cloaked in mystery
But somehow we can become better
and more helpful to others
as we endure
Your unending mysteries.
May Your countenance shine upon the Goodmans
and all the good children
of Downs.
Amen
This precious Sabbath, in memory of Suzie, and her comfort in Heaven, with
a God of kindness and mercy.
sandy
