My Son's Hard Question About His Sister's Down Syndrome

This is not the way I’d thought I’d start
To share this message from my heart
A question asked from my little buddy
That left Dad feeling somewhat cruddy!

The little voice asked as we left home,
“Does anyone wish Eden didn’t have Down syndrome?”
Mom jumped straight in with no way, no how
While my heart dropped low and my head took a bow.

Now before you go, “Well, that’s just not right!”
And before you try to pick a fight
I love Eden Rose more than anyone
And I hope you understand this when I’m done.

My little girl had all of my heart
From the get go, right from the start
She had me wrapped ’round her little finger
That’s why the pain of this question will linger.

There is nothing to change, not one little thing
She’s my angel, my dream, she makes my heart sing.
She’s funny, loving, determined and sneaky
She’s strong, fierce and a whole heap of cheeky.

Her love is bold, pure and true
Accepting of others, yes, even you!
This world, unfortunately, won’t always see this
And she’ll bare the brunt of those who “take the piss.”

The thought of this cuts deep for me
The father’s heart wants to protect, you see
I would give all I have and then some
To save her from other peoples’ dumb.

Saving from all that hurts or scars
And to set her high among the stars
A love so deep it wants to shield her pain
To keep her away from others’ disdain.

I don’t feel this way from a diagnosis
It’s this broken world that brings my prognosis
The fear of “different” that eats away
It stops us from just saying G’day.

There is nothing here that you can catch
But a beautiful relationship just might hatch
If you stop for a moment and truly see,
It’s not the “dis,” but the ability.

My angel was sent to me from above,
To show us what it means to love
So after all this, it’s not her, it’s us —
We need to change our prejudice.

This post originally appeared on Perfect By Design X2.

The Mighty is asking the following: Can you describe the moment someone changed the way you think about a disability or disease? If you’d like to participate, please send a blog post to community@themighty.com. Please include a photo for the piece, a photo of yourself and 1-2 sentence bio.

Want to end the stigma around disability? Like us on Facebook.

And sign up for what we hope will be your favorite thing to read at night.