Gaga

Twenty-five pictures is all it takes to send my spirit soaring.

The twenty-five pictures that my daughter Dana posted on Facebook from yesterday’s Buddy Walk in Tulsa, Oklahoma are an elixir of joy for me. Seeing my sweet seventeen-month-old grandson with his lovely parents (Shawn and Dana Hemminger) at this annual fundraising event for the Down Syndrome Association—well, who would have thought my heart could swell with such pride?

In my early twenties, I knew a young married couple whose first child had Down Syndrome. He was black, she was white; he was in his twenties, she was nineteen, I think. It seemed to me that they already faced enough challenges—interracial marriages, even in the late 1970s, still seemed pretty unusual in the Midwest. And she was so young. My misinformed faith told me that “the chosen” of the RLDS church should be protected from such tragedies as this. Did they do something wrong?

I don’t like admitting that I used to think that way. How could I see Down Syndrome as a tragedy or as someone’s fault? Clearly, I was ignorant.

Tragedy, fault, and Benjamin don’t even belong in the same sentence. Benjamin is no tragedy and certainly no one’s fault. He is a delightful individual who has an extra chromosome. My Michigan friend Barb says I am “gaga” over him. She is right. I am over the moon in love with Benjamin Lee Hemminger. He is exactly who God made him to be.

There is a message here of the sacred blessing that life is. Everyone’s life. Worth is not based on income or status, on race or gender, on ability or disability. Worth is based on God’s love for us. We love because He first loved us. Benjamin is just as important to God as any Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Yes, this grandma is gaga over her grandson. Isn’t that the way it should be? (Now, let me show you some pictures . . .)