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My Brother’s Life: Very Valuable Despite Down Syndrome

·        1-9-2012

Cal Thomas
www.LifeNews.com

How does one measure whether a life was a success, or a failure?

Some would measure it by recognition, that is, how many knew the person’s name. For others, the measure of a successful life would be the amount of wealth accumulated, or possessions held. Still others would say a life was successful if the person made a major contribution to society — in medicine, sports, politics, or the arts.

By that standard my brother, Marshall Stephen Thomas, who died January 5, was a failure. If, however, your standard for a successful life is how that life positively touched others, then my brother’s life was a resounding success.

Shortly after he was born in 1950, Marshall was diagnosed with Down syndrome. Some in the medical community referred to the intellectually disabled as “retarded” back then, long before the word became a common schoolyard epithet. His doctors told our parents he would never amount to anything and advised them to place him in an institution. Back then, this was advice too often taken by parents who were so embarrassed about having a disabled child that they often refused to take them out in public.

Our parents wanted none of that. In the ’50s, many institutions were snake pits where inhumanities were often tolerated and people were warehoused until they died, often in deplorable conditions. While they weren’t wealthy, they were committed to seeing that Marshall had the best possible care, no matter how long he lived. Because of their dedication and thanks to the Kennedy family and their commitment to the rights, causes and issues related to the mentally and physically challenged, Marshall had a longer and better quality of life than might have been expected. He outlived his life expectancy by nearly 40 years. He lived his life dancing and singing and listening to music he loved.

Yes, it cost our parents a lot of money to give him the care they believed he deserved. They might have taken more vacations, owned a fancier house and driven a luxurious car, but before we valued things more than people, they valued Marshall more than any tangible thing. And that care rubbed off on me and other family members.

The stereotype about people who call themselves conservatives is that we don’t care for the less fortunate. Even if that were true (which it isn’t), Marshall deepened my sensitivity and understanding for the mentally and physically challenged and for those who, like our parents, committed themselves to caring for others who were touched by a malady that could easily have been ours.

I was seven years old when Marshall was born. A year or two later when the diagnosis was made, I bought a popular book written by Dale Evans and gave it to our parents. It was called “Angel Unaware.” The title was taken from a verse in the New Testament which says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2) Evans’ book was about the Down syndrome child she had with her husband, Roy Rogers.

Roy and Dale named their daughter Robin Elizabeth and their commitment to her (she died at the age of 2) strongly influenced our parents’ decision to take care of Marshall, rather than institutionalize him. While it was sometimes difficult for them and later after their death, for me, we never regretted that decision because of the joy Marshall brought to our lives.

In an age when we discard the inconvenient and unwanted in order to pursue pleasure and a life free of burdens, this may seem strange to some. I recall a line from the long-running Broadway musical, “The Fantasticks”: “Deep in December, it’s nice to remember, without a hurt the heart is hollow.”

Marshall Thomas’ “hurts” filled a number of hollow hearts.

At the end of the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey reads an inscription in a book given to him by Clarence, his guardian angel: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”

No life is a failure when it causes so many to care for others. At that my brother succeeded magnificently.

LifeNews.com Note: With a twice-weekly column appearing in over 600 newspapers nationwide, Cal Thomas is the most widely read and one of the most highly regarded voices on the American political scene. A graduate of American University, Thomas is a 35-year veteran of broadcast and print journalism. This column was originally published at NewsBusters and is reprinted with 

Santorum defends mourning loss of newborn son By Michelle Bauman

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Senator Rick Santorum, and his wife Karen Santorum at the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa. Credit: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Washington D.C., Jan 7, 2012 / 07:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that only those who “don’t recognize the dignity of all human life” might think that he is “somehow weird” for how he dealt with the loss of his son in 1996.

To those who think a baby is merely “a blob of tissue that should be discarded and disposed of,” recognition of a dead baby’s humanity is something that “should be subject to ridicule,” the former Pennsylvania senator said at a campaign event in Iowa on Jan. 2.

Santorum was recently criticized by political commentators for his actions following the death of his premature son Gabriel, who died just two hours after he was born.

In a Fox News interview, Santorum explained that he and his wife, Karen, decided to take their son home “to have a funeral at home and then to bury him later that day.”

They also showed the child to his siblings, so they could get a chance to see their baby brother.

Santorum said that it was “a tremendously healing experience for all of us” and that it helped “recognize the dignity” of his son’s life and “affirm that memory” for his whole family.

On a Fox News segment on Jan. 2, political commentator Alan Colmes criticized Santorum for “some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two-hour-old baby who died right after childbirth home and played with it for a couple hours, so his other children would know the child was real.”

In a Jan. 5 interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson also ridiculed Santorum and his wife for taking their son home “to kind of sleep with it, introduce it to the rest of the family.”

“He’s not a little weird,” said Robinson, “he’s really weird.”

But Robinson and Colmes were “speaking out of a seemingly bottomless well of ignorance,” according to Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

In a Jan. 5 article in Commentary magazine, he pointed out that health experts often suggest spending time with a stillborn child as a means of grieving.

The American Pregnancy Association advises parents of stillborn children that they “can find comfort in looking at, touching, and talking to your baby,” and that they may wish to allow their other children to see the baby as well.

Making memories can also be a natural part of the grieving process, the association said on its website, explaining that this can be done by bathing and clothing the baby, or even reading or singing to the child.

Wehner decried the “particular delight and glee” with which the political commentators showed a “casual cruelty” towards Santorum.

“Robinson seems completely comfortable lampooning a man and his wife who had experienced the worst possible nightmare for parents: the death of their child,” he said.

Wehner said the incidents showed how “ideology and partisan politics” can “disfigure” some people’s minds and hearts, making them vicious in political disagreements.

Santorum said Colmes later called to apologize. Colmes tweeted that he had spoken to Santorum and his wife and that they had “graciously accepted my apology for a hurtful comment.”

For his part, Robinson stopped short of an apology when questioned by Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Jan. 6.

Although he said he wished that he “hadn’t said it that way,” Robinson also reiterated his belief that Santorum’s views are “extreme” and said he feels that he has an obligation as a columnist to voice his opinions.