Tears - of joy and pride!

I have a story to share today (being typed as tears drip down my face).  Our sons grew up with a special friend who became one of the boys that we loved as well.  Steven was in and out of our house all the time (as I know our boys were in and out of his).  He could be counted on to know the weather report inside and out, and he was the conscience of our boys.  Steven was, and is, incapable of telling a lie and if our boys happened to do something that was not quite up to our standards, we would be sure to hear about it.  With that hanging over their heads, I'm sure our boys thought twice about doing many of the things that would have gotten them into deep trouble!  Don't get me wrong - Steven was not a tattle tale - it was simply that his conscience would not allow him to participate in any wrong doing.

To illustrate that point....our oldest son was somewhat of a dare-devil and would do things that he shouldn't and one evening he thought it would be 'fun' to try something that he'd seen at school.  The premise was that you shook a can of pop and then inserted a straight pin into the side of it.  Removing the pin would then (theoretically) result in shooting the pop with great force into your mouth.  Well, as things are prone to doing, the pin shot out of the can with great force and then promptly disappeared.  The boys turned the family room upside down hunting for the pin and Steven finally came to the conclusion that perhaps, just perhaps, said pin had gone down RJ's throat with the force of the pop.  Despite huge protests from RJ, Steven did the right thing and got Mom and Dad.  Suffice to say, a scary trip to the ER ensued and yes indeed, pin was lodged in RJ's stomach lining.  Had it gotten loose it could have resulted in a perforated bowel or heaven only knows what. 

Despite all these goings on, Steven has remained a friend to all of us and, although he has moved away and we don't see him often he is still 'our' kid.

I think, by now, (if you have read this far), you will have figured out that Steven is a special needs person.  The 'pride' portion of this post comes from an article that is in the paper about Stephen being chosen as the Canadian Special Olympics male athlete of the year.  He has won many gold medals competing for Canada in the Special Olympics with his main sport being speed skating.  He also competes in the summer sports and does equally as well. 

If you would like to read more about him and about his competitions with Special Olympics, go HERE.    As you can see, we are SO proud of him!!

Today the quote is from Christopher Reeve... "I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles"