In welcoming child with special needs, ‘A Special Mother is Born’
Parenthood is a vocation, but some parents are called to a vocation within that vocation — raising a child with special needs. The joy of fulfilling that call is the subject of the book, “A Special Mother is Born.”
A collection of essays by parents of children with special needs, the book was conceived by Leticia Velasquez, the mother of three daughters, including nine-year-old Christina, who has Down syndrome.
When Christina was born, “I learned that though it does take extra effort and patience to raise a child with special needs, the rewards far surpassed the sacrifices,” explained Velasquez, who lives in Connecticut but is originally from Long Island, where she was most recently a parishioner of St. John the Evangelist Church in Center Moriches. In raising Christina, “I moved closer to God as I called on Him for strength. He helped me learn what really matters in life, and to see others for their unique gifts and God-given dignity, not what they wore, or what they looked like. I was thrilled to see that through having Christina in our family, the spiritual growth also happened in the lives of my husband and older daughters.”
“The joy these beautiful people bring to a family who opens their hearts to them is contagious,” she said. “I began to write a blog in 2006 called ‘Cause of Our Joy’ in order to share this joy with the world. In addition, I had discovered the tragic statistic that 92 percent of unborn babies with Down syndrome are aborted when their mothers are given a pre-natal diagnosis. I am convinced that if those mothers and fathers could hear our witness, they would open their hearts to their special needs child and bring them into the world.”
Velasquez said “A Special Mother is Born,” “my own story of Christina’s birth,” was first published in Faith & Family magazine in spring of 2007. “I received so many letters in response from women who had the same epiphany of being surprised by this powerful joy, this encounter with Jesus in the person of their special needs child, that I knew I was on to something,” she continued. “I began collecting stories from mothers three years ago, and was delighted to meet many courageous faith-filled women.” Reading former Senator Rick Santorum’s story in The Philadelphia Inquirer about his daughter with special needs inspired Velasquez to ask fathers to contribute to the book as well.
“Motherhood and fatherhood are noble vocations which accompany the sacrament of matrimony,” she noted. “But sometimes God goes a step further, as He did with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who had been a Sister of Loreto for two decades, teaching history to wealthy Indian girls in Calcutta. He asked her to abandon the comfort of her convent, go into the streets, and minister to the poorest of the poor. Many told her she was asking too much of herself, that she was already fulfilling God’s will, but she knew from her encounter with Jesus, that He would give her the strength to do what He asked of her. Thus the saying, ‘God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.’”
“Very few of the parents in these stories felt prepared to raise a special needs child,” she continued. “They were afraid, overwhelmed, saddened by the loss of the child they anticipated, the healthy child with fewer challenges in life, but they, like Mother Teresa, like Our Lady, said ‘Be it done to me according to Your will.’”
Velasquez said she hopes readers “see the overwhelming sense of joy and peace which comes from embracing the will of God in your life, no matter how unappealing it can seem at first. In the culture we live in today, people avoid suffering at all cost. Yet the happiest people in the world, the saints, learn from our Lord who told them to turn their back on material things, pick up their cross and follow Him. Our special children’s needs lead us to forgo some of life’s pleasures, give more of ourselves than we thought we could, and set our eyes on the glory to come.
“We see beauty in bodies and minds which are less than perfect because we see through them to the purity of our children’s souls,” she said. “They show us glimpses of heaven, where we all will be whole, and bring a bit of heaven to earth in their whole-hearted love. They are our means to sanctity, and we are grateful to God for them, Each reader will receive such a means to holiness in their lives, a challenge which will help them in a similar way. It may be an aging relative, a difficult marriage, or the loss of a job, but if they embrace their cross they will find similar peace.”
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