#GenerationG: A True Story of Miracles, Hope, and Unconditional acceptance

#GenerationG: A True Story of Miracles, Hope, and Unconditional Acceptance

There were tears, “ah ha” moments, laugh out loads, and smiles while reading Nancy Gianni’s new book #Generation G: A True Story of Miracles, Hope, and Unconditional Acceptance. Truthfully, I didn’t want to read it.  Really had to talk myself into this one.  Not because I didn’t want to know what she wrote, not because I don’t like her (in fact she’s one of my heroes), but because a long time ago, I decided to stop reading about Down syndrome.  When Sofia was born, I read everything.  Quite literally.  In fact, there were even research papers I read.  Like, scientific study type research, and I didn’t just read everything once.  I read everything until I couldn’t see the words anymore.  At some point, I stopped.  I think I was mentally overloaded.  Everything I read, even when they weren’t trying to sound like my life was over, sounded like my life was over.  I took it hard.  Crazier still, is that I didn’t believe anything they were saying.  Sofia was Sofia.  Just Sofi-bean.  So, I stopped. Needless to say, this was a great way to restart my Down syndrome reading (I’ve even bought my next read, Up Syndrome by Megan Abner).

Nancy is an amazing person.  Really.  You can’t not like her.  She spews “HELLO I’M HERE” while using jazz hands and a big smile. Maybe not.  The point is, she’s high energy, and someone you know has it together.  What surprised me the most about the book is how honest and relatable Nancy is.  You’d think since I was part of starting a GiGi’s Playhouse, I would know more about the happenings of our founder.  To be honest, maybe it was blind faith, but I had no idea how hard Nancy or INC has it.  This is HARD.  Constantly asking people for money to build a dream is exhausting.  But Nancy never let on that she worries so much about the Playhouses. In retrospect, I think it is a little blind faith, but I also think we (founders, board members, volunteers) somehow get this gut feeling that this place needs to exist.  We have that feeling of “I NEED TO CHANGE THE WORLD,” so we push ourselves past what most people think is even remotely do-able.

Nancy’s resilience and devotion to changing the world is incredible, and we’re lucky to have her as a fellow mom.  I know a huge piece of our lives would have been missing without our Playhouse.  I know that because of Nancy’s inner strength and belief in miracles, somehow some of that sunshine hit us miles away as well as hundreds of others operating Playhouses across the United States and Mexico.  I know that there’s no greater feeling than seeing the Playhouse full of people, meeting new parents with a hug and congratulations, or simply knowing that there’s some place we belong.

Two weeks ago, while looking into potential daycare centers for my daughter and son, I had a woman politely answer the phone, tell me she was excited to get to know me and my children.  At the very end of the conversation, I told her our daughter had Down syndrome, thinking it would be better to tell her now than get the stares when we arrived.  Instead, she told me that their teachers didn’t have “that type of training” and it would “really be a disservice” to my daughter.  I responded with, “she’s verbal and potty-trained” knowing all too well that the manager of the daycare didn’t think she was.  I proceeded with “So, you’re not even willing to see if it would work, you just point blank don’t think she’s a fit.”  Of course, that was followed by polite “oh no, we’d love her.”  In Nancy’s story, her daughter, GiGi, had a similar experience.  They were asked to leave a daycare because the other parents didn’t feel comfortable with GiGi.  Here’s my hero, who like I said, has it all together… but really, she’s just like us.  She fights the same fight we do, every day.

How’d I feel after reading #Generation G? Simple.  I thought, “Okay, Nancy, let’s go.  Let’s do this.” It was empowering.  Some days when it gets really hard, or the days where we just can’t get her to jump (literally – she’s done it once *at the Playhouse* and never again).  The days where her school-mates ask me why Sofia can’t do things the same way they can.  The days where people stare at her, or days where day cares don’t want her.  The days where I don’t know what I’m going to do when she grows up…these thoughts just keep playing in my mind.  Days like these are when I need books like this.  We’re all in this together, and it’s an amazing family.  I’ve met people of all walks of life, and we all blend together.  Just when one of us starts to fall, someone is there to pick us back up and remind us that we got this.  We can do this.  That’s Nancy’s book. That’s the take away.  We can do this #GenerationG.

I may not start reading every book I get my hands on about Down syndrome again, but this was a good start.  #Generation G started in a place of love, pushed forward by the hope for change, and we’re just getting started.  There’s something incredible when you get a group of people to all start moving in the same direction.  When you really start to see the change in the world.  That hope, the perseverance, the blind faith.  Those are the miracles.  We have a long way to go, but if I’ve learned anything from Nancy, it’s to believe.