I've been dying to write this story, but I just never got around to it. Now it finally seems like the perfect time because it helps set up the rest of the post...
Once we were at a restaurant with our kids and my niece and nephew (Cooper). The kids were playing around on some benches, climbing on and off, etc. Gwen was over with us, Cooper was on a bench and Darcy was trying to join him. She has a hard time climbing, so she was putting one leg up, then the other leg, but she just was not able to do it. We're all just watching from across the room. Cooper hops off the bench, puts his arms around Darcy's waist and tries to heave her up. No luck. He climbs back on the bench and tries to pull her up by her arms. No luck. He hops off again and tries his arms around her knees this time but it still doesn't work. None of us are saying a word, we're just watching. I was about to stand up and go help her when Gwen leaped up, ran across the room and shoved Darcy up on the bench. I still get teary eyed thinking about it. The kids don't mind helping her, its just part of playing with her. Another time both girls got invited to a party at one of those bounce house places. I swear Gwen spent half her time pushing and pulling and prodding Darcy so that she could participate with everyone else.
All this to say that I was very touched when we found out that our local Elk's Club has a Bikers for BalSwan event each year where Santa comes to the school as part of a motorcycle brigade! BalSwan is Darcy's school and it specializes in special needs kids. The best part of the event is that we give them a list ahead of time and Santa comes with presents for all the students AND SIBLINGS! Gwen was so surprised when she went to a party at Darcy's school and Santa pulled out a present for her! I told her that Santa knows its sometimes hard to have a brother or sister who needs lots of extra attention and help, and so this was a special thank you for her. Anyway, it was fabulous and we felt so very fortunate!
Darcy also got sponsored by Sun Microsystems which has a big office in our town. They did a giving tree for her preschool and someone chose Darcy. She received such nice gifts we were blown away. I wrote a nice thank you note but I didn't know who to send it to, so I had to call and get the email address of the person in charge of it. I sent it to her and it ended up getting sent around to all the employees who participated in the giving tree. Low and behold, we get an email from an employee who is in charge of the disabled skiing program at Eldora and they invited Darcy up for a free lesson! Talk about blessings : )
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