Down Syndrome

   I've never met anybody with more love for people than a person with Down Syndrome, I believe the first person I met with Downs was when I lived in Germany. His name was Ben. I remember him with his three wheeled bike. He would ride in the parking lot of the Skyline Housing Area in Würzburg, Germany. Ben always had a smile on his face, I don't think I ever saw him upset. Years after I moved back to the states I heard Ben passed away.

Fast forward to 2003, I met a guy who was a year younger than me. His name was Jon. He was a funny guy, always trying to make you laugh. To him, he didn't have an extra chromosome, to him he was just like you. Little did I know at the time, but he was going to change my life forever. He was going to be my brother-in-law. I added the in-law, but he was really more of a brother to me. Jon and I would do everything together. We participated in Special Olympics Bowling and Golf. We bowled in a league on Wednesday nights for years. We went on vacations together. We would take our Saturday's and drive around and go different places. To Jon, he was hanging out with his best bud. We enjoyed spending so much time together. November of 2020, we started to notice Jon was becoming forgetful. Which to us was very strange. He began to forget where he was, what his name was, what our names were. Things just didn't seem right. To us, that was strange because Jon used to be able to tell us when a certain TV show would be coming on and what channel. You could give Jon a number of a NASCAR car and he could tell you the driver's name. Jon wasn't dumb, he was very smart. That's where people don't know. They figure since he looks different and is slower than a "normal" person that they are dumb….WRONG! Back to November 2020, things weren't right, so Christie left her job and began to be his caretaker. Hoping and praying things would get better. Maybe it's just a phase. Well, it wasn't. Things continued to deteriorate. Jon wasn't getting better. I'd take him on rides around town and he didn't know where we were. He would talk about playing golf and look at me and ask if I played golf. He wouldn't remember us playing. It was sad to watch. Things just kept getting worse. In November 2021 Jon had his first ever seizure. He was taken to RMC and released four days later. They didn't do anything to help him because we didn't want to put him in a nursing home 30 minutes away from our house when we have one directly across from where we live. Three days after he was released from RMC, he had an episode and this time we took him to Tanner. I never knew that two hospitals could be so different. The staff at Tanner was so much more helpful and caring. Jon stayed in the hospital for a week. We got him approved to become a resident in the nursing home across from us. He went back to Tanner two more times. His mind wasn't getting better,, but it was definitely getting worse. On August 9, 2022, Jon passed away, and that's when I had a hole placed in my heart. Jon is in Heaven and not in any pain anymore. I miss him daily and think of him all the time. Down Syndrome is just a thing that someone has. It has become a part of my life. 

Christie and I have friends named Christy and Brian. They have a son named Matthew. Yep, you guessed it, Matthew has Downs. I met Matthew in 2012. We have been friends ever since. Matthew was nonverbal for a long time and his only way of communicating was signing. When we would visit, I always had to have Matthew sign to his mom and have her translate for me. Today Matthew speaks and sometimes I struggle to understand what it is he is saying, but he will spell it out by signing to me. We visited Brian, Christy and Matthew quite a bit. Usually when we go to a festival or event Christie, Brian,Christy walk around and Matthew and I do our own thing. Matthew always tries to joke with me. One thing he does is he will look at me and say, "Steve, watch." He will lean over to Christie and kiss her on the cheek. He then goes into a big laugh and I stare him down and say to him, "You kissing on my girl?" His reply is "Yeah." It's little things like that that make me love all these guys. You see, downs may be an extra chromosome but that extra chromosome is an unconditional love chromosome.