From St. George we made our way south to Henderson, NV. Andrea and some of her friends who are on the trip with us went to Phantom of the Opera in Las Vegas while the dad's watched all the kids. She had a great evening! The kids and I had a very nice evening as well. We decided that we should go watch the movie The Lorax at the movie theatre. Great movie by the way! Before the movie I asked the kids where they wanted to go to dinner. McDonald's was the answer of course so off to Mickie D's we went. It was there that I had an experience I'd like to write about this afternoon.
This experience is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, if you are observant, you could see a similar thing most days.
We walked into McDonald's and after herding the cats away from the playland and up to the counter to order I saw something unique. Sitting at one of the booth's I saw a father and his son eating. The young boy was around the age of 16. It was clear he was blind. I ordered and got situated, but kept an eye on the pair sitting in the booth across the room. Initially when I saw the boy, my heart went out to him. Something so simple as going to McDonald's is not so simple for him. I was touched by the way he depended on his father. He trusted his father for everything. Where to walk. Where to sit. What to eat. I wanted to go to him and tell him that everything was going to be ok. That someday, he would be made whole and that this experience he was enduring was only for a season. It reminded me of a talk I heard once from a man named Jeffrey Holland. In this TALK he shared this experience he had as a young father:
Thirty years ago last month, a little family set out to cross the United States to attend graduate school—no money, an old car, every earthly possession they owned packed into less than half the space of the smallest U-Haul trailer available. Bidding their apprehensive parents farewell, they drove exactly 34 miles up the highway, at which point their beleaguered car erupted.
Pulling off the freeway onto a frontage road, the young father surveyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trusting wife and two innocent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the southern Utah metropolis of Kanarraville, population then, I suppose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind citizen offered a drive back to the stranded family. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection—U-Haul trailer and all.
After more than two hours of checking and rechecking, no immediate problem could be detected, so once again the journey was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same location on that highway with exactly the same pyrotechnics from under the hood, the car exploded again. It could not have been 15 feet from the earlier collapse, probably not 5 feet from it! Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.
Now feeling more foolish than angry, the chagrined young father once more left his trusting loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man providing the water said, “Either you or that fellow who looks just like you ought to get a new radiator for that car.” For the second time a kind neighbor offered a lift back to the same automobile and its anxious little occupants. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.
“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-four miles,” I answered. “How much farther do you have to go?” “Twenty-six hundred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two little kiddies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make it in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.
Just two weeks ago this weekend, I drove by that exact spot where the freeway turnoff leads to a frontage road, just three miles or so west of Kanarraville, Utah. That same beautiful and loyal wife, my dearest friend and greatest supporter for all these years, was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. The two children in the story, and the little brother who later joined them, have long since grown up and served missions, married perfectly, and are now raising children of their own. The automobile we were driving this time was modest but very pleasant and very safe. In fact, except for me and my lovely Pat situated so peacefully at my side, nothing of that moment two weeks ago was even remotely like the distressing circumstances of three decades earlier.
Yet in my mind’s eye, for just an instant, I thought perhaps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two little children making the best of a bad situation there. Just ahead of them I imagined that I saw a young fellow walking toward Kanarraville, with plenty of distance still ahead of him. His shoulders seemed to be slumping a little, the weight of a young father’s fear evident in his pace. In the scriptural phrase his hands did seem to “hang down.”15 In that imaginary instant, I couldn’t help calling out to him: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”
From a very young age, I remember experiences where I saw an individual who had a disability and how my heart went out to them. I remember always wanting to protect them and help them reach their highest potential. I wanted them to feel loved and accepted.
Now, having a son with Down syndrome, those feelings are even greater than before. I want to work and serve on their behalf. A huge motivating factor to me in my work, racing triathlon's, or anything else I spend my time doing is to be an advocate for those who face difficult circumstances. It's to give them hope that indeed there is help and happiness ahead --a lot of it.
Whether you are a father of a child who is blind or someone who is facing difficult personal challenges, don't give up. Keep trying and keep fighting. These difficult times will eventually pass and all will be made right in the end.
It is an honor to be Nash's father. It is an honor to work and serve on behalf of Nash and other's with Down syndrome. I've said this before and I'll say it again. The time spent in service to these children has no doubt helped them, but is nothing compared to how much they have helped me.
