Did you know that today is the International Day of Families? This annual celebration was inaugurated in 1994, the International Year of the Family, to enable local communities to highlight the importance of family life and the various ways in which families - birth, adoptive, foster, a combo of all three or some other combination - can be supported.

Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, this annual observance reflects the importance the international community attaches to families regarding their situation around the world. The theme for this year is " Families and Persons with Disabilities".

I have been the mother of at least one child with disabilities for over 19 years. When my daughter was born severely disabled in 1988, I was told by a social worker to just institutionalize her and move on with my life. I was shocked that people were still advising moms to do that. For us, we decided that we would love her and parent her as best we could right in our own home. We had 17 years with her before she slipped from this life.

Being around people with disabilities has been a good thing for us and for the children in our family. It has taught us compassion, protectiveness, a sensitivity to “differences” that might otherwise not exist and even a certain amount of “blindness” to disabilities. By that, I mean that we see PEOPLE, not just disabilities. We know, for example, that just because someone is in a wheelchair does not mean that that person also has mental disabilities. Joshua, our son disabled by arthrogryposis and wheelchair-bound, is also smart, funny, tender-hearted, compassionate and VERY popular with the girls at school. :)

When I was in nursing school many moons ago, our instructors made us ride in a wheelchair for a few hours and notice other people's reactions to us. I still remember how only one person even talked to me, or made eye contact with me – the rest talked to the friend pushing me, as if I were not even there.

Do we do that to others? Do we make assumptions based only on what we SEE? Here's my challenge for you today – make one contact, one connection with a family dealing with disabilities. Send them an e-card, take them a loaf of bread, jot them a quick note telling them one thing you have learned from watching their family. I promise, they'll love it. And so will you.


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