Tolerate: 1. to allow
2. to respect (others’ beliefs, practices, etc.) without sharing them
3. to put up with
Webster’s New World Dictionary
September 15th, 2012 I became the mother to a child with Down Syndrome. It took a good solid 6 months to catch my footing in this new world we now call normal. Doctors appointments, therapy appointments, medical supplies, and medical terminology I still can’t pronounce, are now a part of our family life.
I don’t like these new additions to our life.
But I tolerate them, because I have fallen in love.
I am the mother of some pretty amazing children and I love them all with a depth and a fierce mama bear love. Don’t cross it, you don’t want to see it’s wrath.
But there is a different love that few realize exists. It digs deeper than any emotion I have ever encountered. All I have to do to tap into it is to lock eyes with my sweet Lilyana Elaine and she stares back at me and gives me the most cheeky grin ever. I have witnessed this love first hand as her life has changed the lives around her, just by Lily being Lily. I have often found myself quoting the old adage-“to know her is to love her.”
There it is. To know her. That harsh reality. Not everyone will take the time to know Lily, not everyone will see her goofy grins and be instantly smitten. Not everyone will look past her “disabled-ness” and see a precious soul. Instead, she will be made fun of, be called names, bullied, and mis-undertood.
She will be tolerated. And for most, tolerance is celebrated and awarded.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be merely tolerated. I don’t want to be put up with. You know that feeling (the holidays are in full swing after-all) we tolerate each other to keep the peace. We put up with each other’s iniquities and quirks for the sake of holiday obligations. The crazy cousin or eccentric grandparent’s antics are tolerated and we sweep our own disfunction under the rug so no one sees.
I don’t want to be tolerated. I want to be loved-disfunction, quirks, iniquities and all (and please don’t tolerate my sin-call it out in love so it can be made right.)
I don’t want Lily to be tolerated. My desire as her mother is that people will not just give her a courteous smile and nod as they secretly take pity, but to genuinely embrace her and find out who she truly is as a person. Not as a person only worthy of tolerance, but as a person worthy of LOVE.
Love: 1. strong affection or liking for someone or something
2. a passionate affection of one person for another
3. the object of such affection; a sweetheart or lover
And because Webster’s just can’t say it quite right, please tolerate for a moment , my Bible quoting, the J.B. Phillips version is my favorite. “This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience-it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.”
I want my Lily to know this kind of love from the world, because this is the kind of that love she already gives to it.
lilyana's light 