Of Grace, Gifts, and Gratitude

Grace

Christmas was wonderful. 

All the kids and all the grandkids except Caitlin, who could not get away from work and studies to travel to Texas, were here. 

We had an early holiday with the Welches, who needed to be back in Kansas for the actual day, and then the two Austin families came out for Christmas dinner.



Three Sons-in-Law and One Hopeful

 

Four Daughters

I could tell you all about each of them, but I won't.  If you care, ask me. 

Suffice it to say they are all incredibly handsome, beautiful, intelligent, witty, erudite, and accomplished.

Plus they're good people, which is way more important than all the above anyway.  Needless to say, having them gathered around the table puts every other endeavor we have undertaken into perspective. 

Five Sixths of the Grandkids

Gifts

The gift-giving season poses a few challenges, now that money is not so much a factor as it was for a very long time, for us when the Ranch was young and for the kids when the grandkids were young.  Now if we want something, we pretty much have the means to acquire it. 



Me in Great Wooly Coat

 Still, though, we struggled through!  The girls and I went shopping on South Congress in Austin, and I fell in love with a humongous wool greatcoat I found in the St. Vinnie's thrift shop.  It weighs eight pounds.  It was last in style either in the 80s or 40s, judging from the shoulder pads.  In it, I  imagine I resemble Mrs. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

One of the daughters clearly thought that I was out of my mind and the granddaughters generally agreed.  But I had to have it.

Daughter #2, Martha, sprang for it.

I have no explanation other than to say that to see it hanging there in my closet delights me.

Allied Forces in South Pacific WW II

Jerry gave me Unbroken, the new book by Laura Hillenbrand about Louis Zamperini's WWII experiences and life story.  For hours of each day this past week I have been living through hell with Louie, who spent 47 days adrift in a rubber raft with two fellow airmen in the South Pacific, only to be captured by the Japanese and held for two and a half years as POWs under barely survivable circumstances.

My dad was in the Navy in the South Pac during the war, as was Jerry's brother Herbie.  My Uncle Charles flew as a tail gunner in Europe.  Each crew member had 30 mission to fly.  Half of them made it.  Uncle Charles was sent from Europe, where he had completed his missions, to Indo-China, to fly the hump, where he flew 30 more.

Gratitude

We so took them for granted growing up, these men who were ripped out of their lives and sent off to do unimaginable things against unimaginable odds.  It broke a lot of them, as it continues to do today.  Our neighbor when I was a kid spent hours walking in circles every day in his front yard, as his wife struggled to bring up their son and care for her husband, who--we were told--was "shell-shocked."

To us kids he was just a harmless oddity, part of the landscape. 

Oh, God. 

I now know that he was a walking, living, tragedy.  Once he must have been young, handsome, in love, hopeful.  I have no idea what happened to turn him into what he became. 

Wow.  This piece has taken a turn I didn't expect.  All I can think of now are those men--and women-- still laying their lives and their loves, their peace of mind, their hopes and dreams aside to serve our country in places near and far away.

Let's all make a resolution right here and now.  Let's make sure they get everything they need to put their lives back together when they come home, if they come home.

If Christmas in America teaches me anything at all, it's that we have plenty disposable income to see that those who go off to war on our behalf get everything they need to become whole again.

Let's all give one more gift before the year is over.  The Wounded Warrior is one worthy group, but you may know others.   Send gifts to:

https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/Default.aspx?tsid=66&source=B110010&gclid=CNC7osSol6YCFdtg2god0izang


Credits:
Family pictures by Jerry Horton
Me in Great Wooly Coat by Phil Haas
Allied Forces picture courtesy Google Images

"10K and a quarter a day"

Maria, Mike, & Marci at Family Day

Today was Family Day. 

We invited the families of our Ranchers out to meet new staff, hear a "State of the Ranch" address, and learn more about the roller-coaster we suspect we'll all be boarding sometime in the next 2-4 years as our nation confronts the fact that we're--oops--out of money and we have to find some other way to fund the needs of our loved ones.

We're not Chicken Little, but we're not ostriches, either.  There's reason for concern, if not alarm.

We jumped feet first into the alphabet soup of disability-talk acronyms.  Seems the CMS might push THHS to do something to DADS regarding the ICFs morphing into HCSs at some point in the future, giving the MRAs more authority, with everything  "un-bundled" and that rhymes (sort of) with trouble, right here in River City!

Parents Ponder the Mysteries

Good news: a lot more people with IDDs will start receiving funds to help them survive.

Bad news: everybody will get a lot less money per person than the somebodies who already receive funds are getting now.

Once we had completely confused our parents, we settled down to discuss life at the Ranch.  Phil talked about the program, Genie discussed the role of the Board of Directors, Casey filled everyone in on current changes in her role as QMRP (now QIDP or QDDP depending on who you talk to), and Marci outlined the day program, activities, and Rancher choice options.

The Ranchers joined us for lunch.  It's always fun to see them when they sight their parents for the first time at such events.  They might have seen their parents two days ago, but you wouldn't know that.  They fly at them with open arms and huge smiles, so happy they're here. 

Overjoyed, Rebekah finds Casey

Even Kelly, who sees us every day.

After lunch Jerry discussed how we propose to replace the income we will surely be losing in the years to come, as the government scales back social services and supports.

It's simple, really. 

We need to find 10,000 people to give us a quarter a day, or 5,000 people to give us half a dollar a day, or 2,500 people to give us a dollar a day...or one person to give us $918,000 a year.

Somehow we suspect it will be easier to find a bunch of people to give us a little money than one person to give us a million.  So we're looking. 

If you're one of those people, check out the 10K on the web site.  If you suspect you know some of those people, please forward this blog.

Travis, Mom and Dad

Several of our Ranchers, trying to express their feelings for our community, sum it up with this.

"The Ranch is my life."

For a quarter a day, you can join the 10K and really help Down Home Ranch keep it that way for them.

Planes, Trains, Buses, Shuttles, Monorails But No Automobiles

We did it. 

Thanks to grants from the Lower Colorado River Authority, parents, and a First Baptist Church of Woodworth, Woodworth, LA, we were able to travel to Walt Disney World for the National Down Syndrome Congress annual meeting and convention, taking 11 residents with Down syndrome to attend the simultaneous Youth and Adults with DS Convention.

I had planned to blog throughout our adventure, which began last Thursday and will be ending with the return of the residents and staff to their homes in about two hours from now after their plane lands in Austin.  However, it turns out that while Disney World may be many wonderful things, it is a crummy place for a convention, especially for--as in our case--people traveling in a large group, or--as in many other cases--young families with small children, strollers, and baby paraphenalia.

We arrived late Thursday evening in the Orlando airport and hit the lobby of our resort hotel, Aruba, about nine.  We had to check in room by room, a process which took about an hour.  The Ranchers were amazingly patient as they entertained themselves and one another as Casey, Phil, Marci, and I figured out all the details.

Finally we had all our key cards and, each clutching a map which made absolutely no sense to us in the dark, boarded a shuttle bus that would take us to our rooms...sort of.

Thirty minutes later we were deposited beside a shuttlebus shelter next to a parking lot next to clusters of two story lodgings, each dragging a heavy suitcase and armloads of other perceived necessities.  The Donner party flashed through my mind as we began trekking through the jungle in the dark, in a direction picked at random, there being no signs, nor signs of life, to guide us toward our proper destinations.

We were to reside in Aruba (where people tend to disppear, as I recall, but I tried not to think about that.)  By now the Ranchers were, quite understandably, becoming vocal about having consumed nothing but a small drink and a Clif bar since lunch at 11:30 that morning.

We wended our way around this building and that, finding numbers affixed to them occasionally.  After another half hour we'd all found our buildings and our rooms and agreed to meet at the foot court across the lake, the lights of which were twinkling merrily over the water.

At 10 after 10 we reached the promised land and snagged some burgers and fries before the concessions closed.  The tab was only about 40% more than it would have been at a prime rib steakhouse, but we were in no position to haggle, or to go anywhere else.

In the morning we met at the pool and laughed at our pickle the night before, because once you could see the layout we saw we'd walked a good five times further than we'd needed to.  We met a young family in the pool with baby Landon, here for his first NDSC conference.

Once we'd all connected, we found our bus stop again and headed for Hollywood Studios Park.  We waited about a half hour for the bus to take us there, which it eventually did.

The park was pretty, but had nothing on Sea World or Fiesta in San Antonio.  We were there principally for the High School Musical review, unlike ten or eleven other patrons of the approximately one million in the park.

We got a good seat on the concrete and settled in.  We were a little concerned, because Kara had staked her entire experience on being able to dance with the cast, something over which we had little or no control.  But Kara did, and she made sure they noticed her enthusiasm and knowledge of all the songs and dance routines.  Before we knew it there she was, stepping out with one of the handsome cast members.  Later Mike and Kristen got a chance to join the troupe too.

We went to lunch at Mama Melrose's Italian Retaurant and I looked forward to mediocre food at eye-popping prices, but I was wrong wrong wrong!  Well, right about the prices actually, but a simple bowl of vegetarian minestrone and a salad were as good as anything I've ever tasted, and that's a fact!

By then I'd had all the fun I could stand, and left the park to go to the conference, where Jerry and I joined a workshop of older parents whose adult kids with Downs had married or were contemplating marriage.  More of that later on in the week.

The fab four--Casey, Phil, Marci and Becca--shepherded the Ranchers to the resort hotel where the conference was being held, which was only about two time zones away from the resort hotel where we were staying (but no problem, a shuttle was never more than 50 minutes away at any given time...)

They got registered for their conference, and Jerry and I went to dinner, which again was pricey but quite out of the ordinary.

That was Friday.

(To be continued)