Page 17 - Publishing Inspiration Christmas Card 2013

Anyone Can See Love

l
It was my second Thanksgiving far from home. I

was invited to dinner by a family that I dearly loved.
Norma, the mother, was a wonderful lady. Though she
was blind, nothing slowed her down. She ran her home
with efficiency and precision.
But there was something else that made her more
amazing. She had eight children; four had mental

handicaps, and the other four had physical handicaps.
Each mentally challenged child was paired with a
physically challenged child. Together they became a
team. The mentally capable children would direct their

physically able sibling. Together they could accomplish
things neither could do alone.
When I asked Norma about her family, she told me
her story. When they were young, she and her husband,
Tom, had fallen in love and had married. They both
loved children and couldn’t wait for their first baby to

come along. But, just about that time, both Norma and
Tom contracted a terrible disease.
It was a disease that very often took a person’s life.
Though Norma and Tom both survived, each lost their

sight. As devastating as that was, the fact that they would
no longer be able to have children was even more
disappointing to them.
After they learned to deal with their loss of sight,
they decided that it was time to try to adopt some

children. But every agency that they approached about
adoption felt that it would be impossible for two blind

13