Tess

My Mom did daycare from the time that I was in 4th or 5th grade until just after Kenzie was born. In that time there were many children that came through our lives. I often wonder about them. Some more than others but there was one little girl in particular. She lived in our neighborhood just a few houses from us and we started watching her when she was, I believe, 6 weeks old. I always loved babies and she was so sweet. I remember she was happy and as she grew up she reached milestones later and I think around the time she was 15 months old she was diagnosed with a disease called SMA. It was sad since her parents and therefore us were told that she would never walk. I babysat for her on occasion and her parents were nice people. Anyway...I wonder about Tess so much through the years. I wondered where she ended up and how her life turned out. There are a lot of reasons why she has stayed with me and I can't get into them all here except to say that she made an impact on me in a big way. Tonight on Extreme Home makeover the show was about a family that had a Mom, Dad and 3 children. The Dad and son had Crohn's Disease and the 2 little girls had SMA. This made me think of Tess again and I did a search (again) on her on google. I was so happy to find an article about her and see her beautiful smiling face and feel that she is OK. It is nice to feel resolved in some way about her. She was amazing. I can only imagine that her life has been hard but she never gave up when she was young. There were times she tried so hard to do things and she would get so tired but she has grown up and I am sure her personal strength has helped her to do that. She is an inspiration to me about how people can come through disabilities and triumph! You can read the article I found about her here. It was written in November 2005 and she was a freshman in college at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Learn more about SMA here if you are interested.