The email I received read, “We are on the way to IHOP. We will be there by 9 a.m. Thank you. Our daughter is in a wheelchair. That’s how you can recognize us.”
As a pastor, I had these random meetings several times a year. A couple without a church wanted to get married and found my name floating around in the circles of couples who wanted a “churchy” wedding, but not in a church. In the churchy culture of Waco, Texas, I was one of the few who would officiate such a wedding without burdensome and arcane requirements.
I understand the weight of marriage, that it is a holy institution and not to be entered into lightly. But I also know that people who want to get married will get married. I would rather be the person to speak words of life at the beginning of their journey together than a judge or justice of the peace in a sterile courtroom somewhere, so I almost always say “yes.”
That morning, though, I was the recipient of words of life.
They were simple people, deep blue-collar. Most of those whose weddings I officiate feel nervous about meeting with a “preacher,” but this couple was visibly more anxious than others.
I diffused this by letting them know that, in all my years of doing weddings, meeting with the officiant the first time could often be the most intimidating element of the planning process. I gave them permission to laugh, curse, ask, or say anything they felt comfortable saying in a public place. I could tell they appreciated this.
Once I got a feel for their personality, I didn’t waste any time asking about Dani, their daughter, who was at the table with us. I sensed they welcomed this and that talking about her would help them open up more quickly.
Though they called her “our daughter,” Dani was Julie’s child from a previous relationship. She was nonverbal and strapped into her wheelchair for protection.
Sitting beside me, John reached across and held Dani’s right hand to comfort her as we ate and talked. At the same time, Julie, sitting across from me, ate her breakfast while feeding Dani and keeping Dani’s hand from grabbing food from the plate. It was a Master Class in what happens when someone has years of practice performing difficult tasks for someone they love.
While effortlessly doing all this, Jule narrated the story of the previous ten years.
At six years old, Dani hadn’t uttered a word but was as mobile and gregarious as all her friends. She communicated with sign language. But one day, she collapsed, and Julie noticed her eyes rolling back into her head.
After several days in the ICU at their hometown hospital, doctors informed Julie that, in addition to her severe autism, Dani had a rare and aggressive mitochondrial disease and would likely not survive until age seven. They advised Julie to take her daughter home and make her as comfortable as possible during her last days.
If you are a mother, have had a mother, or have seen a mother at work, you know deep in your heart what comes next in the story.
This was unacceptable, so Julie put Dani in her car and drove around Texas, hospital to hospital, demanding that her daughter be treated. This landed her, exhausted and at her wit’s end, sitting on the floor of an ER waiting room in Austin, refusing to leave until doctors hooked Dani up to a feeding tube and nursed her out of the woods.
Dani’s health improved to where she could be fed, but she was likely to never walk again. Though not at her pre-six-year-old levels, she had re-acquired some basic sign language skills.
This experience depleted Julie’s energy and the few resources she had at her disposal to take care of Dani, who was 16 years old when I met them. Regardless, Julie persisted.
However, one thing kept gnawing at her. After every doctor’s visit and consultation with caregivers, agencies, and experts, Julie left every meeting feeling, in her word, “dumb.”
Julie didn’t want to feel that way anymore, so despite the uphill battles she already had in front of her and even though she only had a high school diploma and had been out of school for many years, she decided to put herself through nursing school.
For her daughter.
Just so she could understand what the experts were telling her.
So she could give all she could to someone she loved.
I sat there as more details began flowing out, fighting back tears as Julie and John dropped bits of information about things they had sacrificed for Dani. They scattered this information as if it were insignificant facts, not the words of life I was receiving.
This story is about to take a turn, and if you feel I have unfairly baited and switched you into listening to a political rant, then please know that is only part of my intent.
When news of President Trump’s family separation policy at the US-Mexican border hit social media in 2018, we saw all the same, tired excuses:
It’s not really happening.
Maybe it is happening, but Obama did it, too.
Someone shared a bogus photo, so your whole argument is bogus.
If you care about ___________, then why don’t you care about__________?
I was prepared for those and the “safety and security” arguments. What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was this question: What kind of mother drags their kids across a continent in order to commit a crime?
The question aggravated and unnerved me.
It was on my mind when I left my wedding consultation with Julie, John and Dani. The question decimated me as I wiped away the tears in my truck, thinking about all that Julie had given up and risked for her daughter.
What kind of mother would do such a thing?
A mother with a child. That’s what kind.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.