Shining hope for her son with Down syndrome
One mom was bereft at son's diagnosis of Down syndrome. Then she saw the girl by the side of the road and found illumination. IFIRST saw her in December, a month before my son was born. Hunched over my swollen belly, I waited in my car for a green light. What about her turned my head? Not her beauty. She sat on the bus stop curb, stocky in winter layers, mouth a grim rectangle. I liked the way her neck rested right on her shoulders, the planted look this gave her. I liked her jutting chin and how she stared, unblinking, into the traffic while not smoking the lighted cigarette in her gloved hand. A slight blankness to her expression made it seem that a daydream -- no doubt compensatory, probably romantic -- had pulled her inward, away from her own solid body and the cold. With a stab, I remembered having such daydreams as a young woman, those needs I had then, needs that over the years I've not so much filled as lost track of.