On the 12th day of Christmas I'd like to introduce ...

actually now I'd like your help!

Over the past 11 days I have introduced you to a few individuals with Down's Syndrome who in one way or another have been an inspiration to others. 

Some that have achieved great things themselves and some that have inspired others to great things.  

But if we are honest, having a child with special needs can be difficult, frustrating and tiring and that is all that a lot of people on the outside see, so we need to tell them about the other side, the wonderful positive gifts that sharing the life of someone with Down's Syndrome brings you.   

During Daniel's short life I was inevitably so tied up with his medical issues that I didn't get chance to realise that important fact and when he died the grief was too intense to see beyond it for a long while.  I felt terrible guilt - guilt that somehow it was my fault he had these problems, guilt that I hadn't been able to save him and guilt that I had never really accepted him and loved him for who he was because I hadn't really had chance to come to terms with the Down's Syndrome.  

It was some way down the line that I finally realised that it was just the medical problems that had clouded my view.  That a mum who: visits twice a day; takes clean clothes and dresses their baby; puts him in pj's every night and sets his mobile going before leaving; expresses milk for 6 weeks with only a photo and a recording of her baby crying because she's not allowed to feed him direct because he's too weak - that's not a mum who doesn't love her baby!  Somewhere during those 14½ weeks of his life, everything else had stopped mattering, he was my baby and I loved him unconditionally, I'd just been too busy doing it to notice!

 
Only finally then was I able to see clearly what a truly special gift Daniel was in my life and what richness people with Down's Syndrome bring to the world.

I know there are many more individuals, like those I have featured, so now it's time for you to tell me about the person with Down's Syndrome that inspires you the most and why.  Post a comment saying :

• who they are
• how you know them
• how they have inspired you

It doesn't have to be something very public and obvious like those I have focused on, it can be something small and personal such as the effect my son Daniel had on my life.  

   

Who knows, maybe I can feature them on my blog some time in 2010.