Being a Father

[Kaleem]

Other day on my way home, I was listening to Dan Patrick radio show. Usually they have guests on that talk about sports of course, however, this day they had Jim Kelly (ex-Bills Qb) who talked about his son Hunter Kelly. His son has this rare disease called "Krabbe". After listening to him describe the struggles his son has gone through and continues to go through...I was overcome with emotions with tears rolling down my face. I started to think what if one of my girls was stricken with some awful disease. How will I cope with it? I cannot even imagine it. Anyway the point of the post is this, his son live s a pretty horrible ife, the quality of life if you can call it life is not there. He has to be spoon fed, he cannot swallow, so they have to swab out his mouth several hundred times a day, he is on oxygen. Why put your own flseh and blood throgh this trauma. Just let him go....let him rest. Its selfish on the part of the parents to prolong the inevitable just to serve their own selfish needs. What do you guys think?

P.S. Here is the link to his website for more details.

Hunetrs Hope

[Kaleem]

Madhanee, man you tickle me. Levae it to you to lighten up the mood. Your refrence to computers and coffee was humrous. Thanks

[Shirin]

It seems like a real dilemma.
Once upon a time such a child would have died, proabably because he was left to die.
Today we have medical technology that instead of giving us control over life and death has in some ways taken it out of our hands. We are "forced" to do anything in our power to maintain life. Yes you will say what life? and to what purpose?

I do think that as in all other cases it should be a decision of the person himself, if he is able to think and decide.

I have a handicapped brother in law. He is deaf, brain damaged, so he hasn't learnt to talk, has the mental age of an 8 year old, and various other problems I won't go into here. But he can walk, eat and do various things by himself. He is always a challenge for us, though we have all gotten used to him and learnt a thousand ways to cope and let life go on.

Obviously, the world is full of people with good advice about what we should have done or should do, about what he really needs and how, but none of them have more than good intentions. Living everyday with a handicapped person teaches you a lot.

Everything that happens in our lives teaches us something if we are able to learn. Nothing happens without some purpose, whether we realize it or not. I think that living with or near a handicapped person is no exception. At the very least you learn patience and gratitude for what you do have. You learn that people do not have to be beautiful by conventional standards in order to give you something precious. You learn to rethink priorities.