Love Came in Through the Window
The day of my brother John’s First Communion should have been filled with joy and celebration. Instead it was darkened by sorrow and pain. Five days earlier our mother had given birth to her fourth and last child, a boy who would be named Kevin. My father had come home from the hospital that Monday morning in early May, his face alight with joy, his eyes shining. A day later, he was obviously upset and his eyes were moist and red-rimmed. Not wanting to approach him, and fearing that something bad had happened, I turned to my mother’s sister—our beloved Auntie. I told her that Daddy looked upset and I was sure that something was wrong with Mommy or the baby.
Auntie, unaware of any problem, assured me that all was well. But it wasn’t. The next day, my father told me with tears in his eyes that my new baby brother had Down syndrome. I did not know what that meant, and Daddy explained that the baby was, in the language of the time, “mentally retarded.” We were sitting on the couch in our small living room, and I stood up and began to run to my bedroom to cry. But Daddy called to me to come back to him, and he held out his arms, and I ran into them and we wept together.
It was lunchtime on a Tuesday, and I had ridden my bicycle home from school to get something to eat. Now it was time to go back. I said goodbye to Dad, went outside, got onto my bike and rode fast through our suburban neighborhood, past the houses that lined the streets. The trees in every yard were thick with spring-green leaves that seemed almost to glow in the sunshine. But all I could think about was my baby brother and what my dad had just told me. I prayed to God to take away this problem, this condition that had damaged my baby brother and brought such bitter suffering to my parents. I knew that I was asking for a miracle; I don’t think I realized that taking away the Down syndrome was an impossibility, and that even if it were possible, taking it away would make Kevin into a different child, into someone he was not. I just wanted Kevin to be well and everyone’s pain to stop, including my own. I wanted to see my father’s blue eyes without red rims and brimming tears.
I had turned 10 years old exactly one week before Kevin was born. My brother was 7 and our sister, Elizabeth, was 2. I don’t think that John completely understood what was happening, and Betty, of course, was too young to understand.
John and I attended our local parish school. The preparations for First Holy Communion for the second-graders were in place. There was no reason for John not to receive the sacrament with his classmates that coming Saturday. Our family would attend the Mass, except for Mommy, who was still in the hospital.
John’s First Communion day dawned sunny and bright and pleasantly warm. Daddy and I were there, along with our Grandma, Mommy’s mother, who lived with us, and Auntie and her husband, our Uncle Paul. There were no plans for a party at our house afterward.
Like the other boys in his class, John wore a white suit. He looked happy. Despite the sorrow that had come to us that week, we had something important to celebrate. John would receive Jesus for the first time in Holy Communion. Perhaps that realization gave my father and mother a sense of hope. In our sorrow, God was present. We were not alone.
After the Mass we went home to share a simple breakfast. But there was a surprise waiting for us. When we walked into the house, we found that the dining room table had been set for breakfast, with plates and cups and saucers and silverware. A coffee cake had been placed on a plate. At the center of the table was a vase filled with red roses from someone’s garden.
We were amazed. We had all been at the First Communion Mass. No one had been at home. Who had done this, and how had they gotten into the house?
We found out later that it was Joyce, our neighbor across the street. Joyce was a wife and the mother of four. She and our mother were around the same age, and were friends. They visited at each other and chatted, and went shopping together, and shared the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood. They did not belong to the same church—Joyce and her family were Lutheran—but they shared so much else. Joyce knew about Kevin, and that Mom was still in the hospital, and that John was to receive First Communion. She had climbed through an open living-room window and set the table and made it look festive to lift our spirits. And perhaps to remind us that despite the sorrow that had come to us, we still had something to celebrate.
Joyce knew of the sorrow and worry that my parents were suffering. She saw a way to help and to bring comfort, and she did it. Her act of kindness shone brightly during a dark time for my family.
Kevin was born more than 60 years ago, when far less was known about developmental disabilities. The progress that has been made since then seems to me to be almost immeasurable. People with disabilities like Kevin’s receive education and training, and often become productive members of society. It was different for Kevin. There was so much less help available, and my parents did not have the means to care for him at home. Having no choice, they placed him in a publicly-run institution. Years later, when great changes were made in caring for persons with disabilities, Kevin lived in a series of group homes, where he did well despite his limited ability to communicate. He lived to age 40. At the wake we held before his Funeral Mass, a woman resident of his group home knelt before his casket and said, “I’m gonna miss that little guy.”
Research into developmental disabilities expanded, and so did the opportunities available for those with “special needs”—a term that I don’t recall ever hearing when Kevin was born. Today those words convey hope for so many, both persons with disabilities and their families.
Our neighbor Joyce, who had shone such a bright light for us in a dark time, gave birth to a Down syndrome daughter several years later. Joyce and her husband kept their daughter at home; as a young adult she was able to receive vocational training, and eventually she lived in a group home.
When I think of Kevin, I think also of how different life is today, and how much greater the opportunities are for so many who are born with the kind of disability he had. How much we have learned, how much better we are able to care for, teach and encourage those with special needs. I hope and expect that the work will continue and flourish, so that families affected by developmental disabilities will see the hope and possibilities that lie just beyond the darkness that afflicts them at first, as it afflicted my family.
But among the memories of that difficult time for my family, we hold the shining remembrance of how deep sorrow was lifted on a special day. Red roses and coffee cake on a festive breakfast table were a sign of love and concern, placed there by a woman of compassion who did not hesitate to climb through a window if that is what it took to bring us comfort and to let us know we were not alone.