Transcript
Hello and welcome to the If We Knew Then podcast. I’m Stephen Saux.
0:32
And I’m Lori Saux.
0:34
And today we’re joined by Sader Issa from Syria.
0:38
He is a delightful young man whose story you may be familiar with, as his father has Down syndrome. This interview is life changing. For me, as a mom, it brought so much joy, just meeting him and talking to him and learning about his life. And then on another level, I’ll tell you as a parent, he just defined one of the things that very early on before it needed to be an issue with Liam, that we were, you know, we were told Liam would most likely never have a family if he could be on his own. So I love that my morning began with speaking with him. And just when we finished, I had, I had a different perspective on everything. And we are constantly trying to open our minds, we are constantly working on making changes and changing perception and perspective. And it’s such a gift, when your own perspective, and perception is changed and opened and widened. And let’s get to it. Let’s share this beautiful conversation with our wonderful young man.
1:51
Sader! Thank you so much for joining us today.
1:53
Thank you for having me.
1:55
We’re very excited. Thank you for making time for us. I know you’re you’re staying very busy.
2:00
Not a problem. You know, it’s because we’re now having college exams. But of course, I have time for you guys for SNAP problem.
2:08
Maybe Could you tell us a little bit more about yourself.
2:12
My name is Sader Issa, and I come from Syria. I was born and raised here in Syria in a small town. It’s called Al-Baida, and the local population is about 1500 people. That’s it. So it’s a very small town. And people hear all we know each other. So it’s a very peaceful, very kind environment to be to be born into. I’m also born to a father with Down syndrome. And I recently realized that it is the first known story worldwide have a doctor or a medicine or dentistry student born to a father with Down syndrome. So that’s very exciting. Of course, we’re living here, our simple life here in Syria, we’re living in a safe town here in Syria, and you know, things are going well with us, hopefully, you know, the general situation here is you can get much better. And we hope it happens soon, you know, because many people unfortunately, live in a regions when where they have, you know, war conflicts, bomb beings, and all this stuff. So we hope peace for all, too. And all the work.
3:26
When I heard your story and reached out to you, that was one of my concerns with you is just where you live and making sure that you’re safe. So good to hear that.
3:37
Yeah, we never had any war conflict in our region, thank God, we were suffering just from the general things that happening in Syria, like economical blockade, travel plugin on Syria and all this stuff. But in war conflicts and all the stuff we thank God, we did not suffer from any of this stuff.
3:58
I just want to say your story, your personal story is going to bring peace to a lot of people because being raised by a father with Down syndrome, you know, when we have a child, or we find out, we’re pregnant, and we get that diagnosis, a lot of negatives are given to us a lot of they tell us everything that our child will never do. And when I heard that your father had Down syndrome, I just had so many questions for you because you’re just you’re taking what they tell us and you’re shattering that but then also, I want to hear about your life because that’s another thing you’re you’re you’ve obviously lived a great life and you have everything that’s instilled in you and the foundation that you’re coming from is beautiful and just knowing that it brings joy and peace to a lot of parents hearts who are told that these are things that your child will never do. Right off the bat.
4:55
Yeah, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your dad.
4:58
Well, of course. You know, my father is called Jad Issa, he is a 45 year old man with Down syndrome. He is a good father, he’s a good husband, he has been working for over 25 years in the same factory. It’s a local wheat winding factory. And he’s well respected in his society, you know, especially after our story was shared worldwide, you know, he became, you know, like, a famous person here in Syria. So everyone who come to buy products from the factory that he works in, they always recognize him, they always like to say hi to him and just know more about him. And a lot of these people get surprised when they, you know, talk to him and interact with them. Because they realize that he is a smart guy is a funny guy, you know, he’s very social. And that’s something that they don’t know much about people down syndrome. And I hope to be able one day to show this unique character, this very special mindset to all this world, you know, I hope one day to be able to share his character with all the world in general, hopefully, hopefully, we will do it in future. As I said, He’s a very smart guy. He’s a funny guy. He’s a good husband, as a parent and a family leader, you know, and hopefully, hopefully, you will get the chance to meet him one day.
6:20
Oh, that’d be wonderful. That’d be wonderful.
6:23
If you ever want to do a podcast with him, we would love that we’d love to talk to him.
6:28
Yeah, he speaks only Arabic, you know, I will have to translate him. But you know, it’s not a problem. Of course, he’s now at at work, you know, 8pm here, and he’s still at work. Now, he usually comes around 10pm. It comes, you know, dinner for a couple of hours, and he returns to his work. But that’s only in the in the summer. In the winter, he’s always at home, he works only for five or six hours, because there is no, it’s not the week season here in Syria. So there is no much work to do. Hopefully, we will we can do such thing. No problem.
7:04
When did you find out that your father had Down syndrome? And and how did you find out?
7:09
Well, I think I think I was about 10 or 11 years old, you know, I started to realize that he is different, you know, is different from other parents, He’s different from other people. But I didn’t, you know, quite understand how and why he was different. You know, I just knew that there was something different from the other parents different from the other people that we know, I didn’t ask questions about because you know, we’re in Syria, or in the traditions or in the culture is, in the general culture, it’s not appropriate to ask such questions, you know, so you have always to find your answers in one way or another. So after a while, we started learning about Down syndrome in school, you know, first of all, the naming was different to me. So I didn’t know Down syndrome as this name because common people here in Syria still refer to Down syndrome as Mongol ism. So Down syndrome was a new name to me was the name of the International name of my father’s case, you know, the name that I can reach and search for my question that I have in my mind. So, you know, in school, we got very simple information about Down syndrome. And as you said, earlier, we get only the things that the person will, with Down syndrome will not be able to do in the future or may have to suffer from in the future. And we don’t get anything about the positive side of Down syndrome aren’t the different abilities that they have, you know, at first, it was a bit sad, you know, to know about all the problems that my father may have to face in the in the future or may be facing right now. But you know, after a while, all these negative informations just started to fade in the background, you know, I just see my funny father, my healthy father, and my strong father, you know, he used to be very muscular when he was younger. So so all these negative ideas start to fade in the background. And I just started to understand more about his character more about John or more about my father as a person, not about a diagnosis, dousing diagnosis, and you know, it took some time but at the end, I started to, to realize who was really him, you know, not the diagnosis, not the things that we we learn and the books, you know, that they want to be able to do this and they weren’t able to do that, you know, all these negative ideas just faded, and he returned. He returned to be just my father, you know, my lovely father without any kind of labels. So and I don’t I don’t like to label him. But now since we are advocating for Down syndrome, I always say, I’m the son of a public dancer, but I don’t quite like it. You know, I’m the I’m the son of John Issa. He’s, I don’t like to always put labels on him. But you know, due to the work that we are doing right now, I have to always say that I have followed Down syndrome. But you know, before we do all this reports, and articles, all this stuff, we didn’t even mention this, it just faded, you know, we just stopped thinking about it.
10:34
That’s kind of how we feel in our household to that we do. We feel like we talked about it a lot, because we, like you said, are advocates. But Liam has an older sister, Sophia, who’s two years older, and it just wasn’t anything that she really questioned. And then once she got some answers, it was just kind of there. And that was it. Because like you said, you didn’t want to label somebody, it’s not who they are. Totally. Yeah. And you don’t want to put those limits. Yeah, you don’t want any of those negative, like you said, the negative information to then put any limits on on anyone
11:10
you said. And you had some questions and and that you didn’t really talk to your father about it. Have you ever talked to your father about about Down syndrome?
11:21
No, no, actually, I don’t. As I said, it’s not something you know, comfortable to speak with. It’s totally, especially in the, in our culture, in our culture, in general, it’s not, you know, let’s say appropriate to talk about such things with the person who has this defect, or this problem, or this diagnosis, we think of it as something polite, you know, to just not a question these people about these topics, because not all people are comfortable sharing these information. And may some people may, you know, you know, just start losing their account confidence or just start, how can I say, just start, you know, think different about ourselves and think that we are always have these questions in my mind about them. So we try to not put other people in such weird or awkward situations. That’s it, but I got my answers. At the end, it’s not always right, you know, it’s not always good to deal with things to this kind of attitude, you know, and it’s not the only problem in the Arabic culture, you know, there’s many, many other problems that need fixing. And this is one of them that we are not always honest with the, with the other people about all the questions in my mind. So, you know, I think that that is something that could have been fixed. If we, you know, just had a better idea about
12:56
do you think that’s how your your father grew up as a as a young man and a boy, I guess? Do you think that he was talked to about Down syndrome? Or is that something that would have been shied away with as well?
13:09
Yeah, shied away, of course, unless, you know, he was, you know, interacted with some bullies, you know, because as I said, people here in general refer to Down Syndrome people as Mongols or Mongol ism. And you know, as a word, it’s not very acceptable here and here. And people are not always frank about or not always honest about what they have in mind, especially when they are treating with people down syndrome or any other diagnosis. So I think it’s totally was shy, shy doing solder,
13:41
I think, a good thing that came from that, by not speaking those negatives and imposing those boundaries on your father, he wasn’t told that he could never do all these things. And he’s, he’s doing all of the things that are written on a piece of paper that say, these are things that your child will never do. Yeah. So I don’t know if you’ve covered this, but how did how did it feel when you realized your father had Down syndrome? And how has that feeling changed if it has changed?
14:14
Well, at the beginning, as I said, it was a bit sad, because I knew more about the problems that he might have in the future, like, you know, diabetes, and heart problems, all these stuff. But you know, it didn’t change anything inside of me. I didn’t feel ashamed of him. I didn’t feel that I don’t love him. You know, he was always my friend. Especially when I was, you know, just a little kid. He used to always play with me. He used to always stay around me now, because I’m at college. I don’t have much time to spend with him. But at that time, he was he was just my friend. He was he was you know, always playing with me always. Sharing with me the beautiful moments, beautiful story. He’s, and you know, it didn’t change my feelings towards him, I just as I said, I just felt a bit sad because he might have some problems in the future. And I, as I said, these negative ideas just faded in the background. And all this sad feelings just turn normal and now and turn to much love and appreciation to towards him, because now I know that there’s a certain problem that he might be having. And even though he is working hard, he is trying to spend most of his time at work, to just be able to spend on this family and give us our normal lives. So after you know, I realized, and after I became older, and after I got a better understanding of his situation, it became, you know, respectful feelings towards him very loving feelings towards him, because some people think of him as someone not capable of doing all this stuff. And even though he did, he did them all. So that sports gives me much love much respect towards him. And, you know, I don’t think that this feelings will ever change for anything in life, whether it was a diagnosis or anything else. And I’m sorry, about, you know, getting a bit confused in English speaking, but I don’t speak English all the time. So I hope you get my my ideas.
16:38
Totally, you speak wonderful English. Is that commonplace in Syria to learn English?
16:44
No, no, no, not not at all, you know, especially ones here, you know, you can find people speaking English in other Arabic countries like Lebanon, you know, United Arab Emirates, all these countries, but especially in Syria, the only spoken language is Arabic. And even even in university where we learn dentistry, and we learn medicine, will we learn all these fields in Arabic? And I think it’s one of the very few Arab countries that do so. So not not many people speak English at all, not many people understand anything about English. Very few people speak English, and very few people, you know, are good at speaking English. With a with a, with no Arabic accent, I think,
17:28
well, Arabic is such a beautiful language with such amazing history
17:33
and a good history. But you know, people have recently are going way, way extreme, not in a religious aspect, but, you know, a racist aspect and all these you know, bad stuff. And the Arab countries you can find, you know, a one Arab punch with democracy and with good human rights and with the good you know, economical, economical aspect unless you’re speaking about the Gulf countries where they have all this oil and all this stuff. The Arabic history is very rich, it’s very good but you know, the last generations have folded or have just did some horrible things that put this you know, great, great land in such a bad situation that in politically or economically and in all the aspects
18:30
there’s a lot of suffering but what I was gonna say was with with this beautiful language that you have, that you’ve grown up with being able to now speak very well in English, your well your father and your story can be can reach so many more people.
18:46
That’s that’s what we are trying to do you know, the first video was all in Arabic. I don’t know if you watch the video or just read the articles about our story, but we made our first video interview, it was all in Arabic, but it was translated to English with English subtitles.
19:06
Yeah, I saw the video with subtitles, and then read an article. Yeah,
19:11
we’re applying to for the next video to you know, for me to be speaking English and my parents with Arabic with the English subtitles. You know, I think it could, as I said it could reach more people around the world
19:26
to go back to your family dynamic. Your father of being so close to you when you were a boy, what was your family dynamic? Like you’re an only child, I believe maybe you could tell us how your mother and father met and what their relationships like.
19:43
Back in the days in Syria, you know, was not common for men and women to date and to go all by themselves. So especially in in small sizes, like towns, little towns or rural villages. So, in one way or another, the guy who wants to introduce himself to this lady have to find a proper way to introduce himself to tell her more about his feelings towards her and his, whether he loves her or not, or whether he likes it or not. So for my father and mother, you know, both of them are from different towns. So I believe they met first, when my father was visiting my aunt, my aunt’s husband was a judge here in Syria, and he had this family who was doing in a case with him, since he was a judge, and they suddenly met, you know, my father and my mother, were both of them actually have intellectual problems. And I don’t know why most of the people think that my mother don’t have any kind of disability. And she is, like, I forgot this word, like she is marrying this little baby is some some, some, unfortunately, some people describe it as this way, like a full grown woman, and with the old has her intellectual abilities are marrying someone with some intellectual disabilities, they see it as sports station, I think this sport is exploiting. Yeah. But that’s not the case. You know, both my parents have intellectual disabilities, my mother has a slight mental delay, but you know, it’s not most noticeable until you closely interact with her, you know, but they are intellectually at the same, you know, at the same level, they are very simple people, but very kind, very loving and very, you know, have a such a strong determination in life. So, they met by coincidence, at, as I said, at my aunt’s house, when my mother’s family was, you know, doing some business with my, my aunt’s husband, the two families start to discuss whether it’s, you know, appropriate, because, you know, people here, especially people with disabilities can’t decide by themselves, whether they want to get married to their partners, or whether they want to do anything, any formal and informal thing here in Syria. So the two families had to discuss this marriage. And, you know, my father, mother has had to get more arranged dates, between them, you know, my mother can can come to my aunt’s house when my father is there, or my father can go to my mother’s house when they’re, you know, families there, and they can, you know, just sit with each other and discuss about their, their lives and discuss about their jobs and all this stuff. You know, I don’t know if you get the general idea that, you know, but that’s how things or marriages used to be done here in Syria.
23:06
No, I think that something in the United States we’ve lost, but if you go back a few years, you can go to where there was a real courtship, there were steps involved, and it was tightly monitored by, by the parents don’t
23:20
think we have have changed here, you know, in Syria, we’re are now more westernized, we now don’t have you know, it’s not acceptable anymore to have such marriages at that time. Okay. That’s just to clarify,
23:35
now, no, growing up with these two beautiful people you’ve described, and I think of parents roles in their children’s lives, and there’s discipline involved, and I was just curious about how you were disciplined as a child. You talked about how this loving family and you lived with your parents in their own home? Or how did that how did that work?
23:58
Yeah, we have our own home, who, in our town, and my parents were very protective, you know, me when I was a little kid. So I became a bit shy, you know, as a little child, you know, and it didn’t take much to four disciplines, you know, it just took a look from my mother or my father or just simple work to stop doing this thing. It is not good. Or stop, you know, playing with this stuff or, or anything like that. And that’s it, you know, I didn’t I was not, unfortunately, I was not very naughty as a as a little kid. But you know, that’s it. You know, I was a bit shy. It took just a word or lick from them to stop whatever I was doing. So what
24:42
a beautifully normal life you had and have, and that’s, that’s really a great message to send to people that here’s to people that may have some difficulties, but they’re, they’re just given the right and then successfully a have their own home and raise a child. And just like any typical person
25:05
thought, or when you got a little bit older, you know, kids tend to try to push the boundaries a little bit or, or test the limits. Did you? Did you do that? And no, no, no,
25:16
I was, as I said, I was a bit shy, you know, as a kid, even when I got a bit older, you know, I didn’t tend to, you know, try to all these risky stuff, or risky games that the kids in my age do. So, no, I didn’t have this, this kind of experiment. And you had
25:37
a relationship with your parents, parents, your grandparents?
25:42
No, no, unfortunately, I answered this question. My grandparents have passed away, before I was born. So all what I had, what I know about them is from, you know, the stories that my parents have with them, you know, they always tell me that they were nice with them, that they, you know, try all their best to provide the best opportunities for my father in his life. And, you know, they were not always successful, because things were very hard. At that time. In our life, my father is doesn’t know how to read and write, because there was no special education, or teachers in general not know how to cope with the people down syndrome or intellectual disabilities. So he was not able to learn how to read and write. And that was something that broke my grandmother’s heart, you know, she, she wanted him to be, at least just be able to read simple stuff, and to calculate and all these just simple stuff at school, but he, he was not able to do so unfortunately. But they tried to, even though he was not able to read and write, they try to work and provide him as a little kid, and try to, you know, teach him the different abilities that he will need to be having in the future. Like, when he first got his job, you know, my grandmother used to always go to the lights where he works, always try to see if he is doing this thing in a good way or not. And always try to, to ask his colleagues to help him with what he’s he’s doing. And now thank God, he teaches the new workers how to work on the machines and how to do the things in this factory. So yeah, they were they were successful in this aspect. And all what I know about my, my grandfather, that I look a lot like him, you know, they always tell me that you’re exactly like your grandfather. I hope I had the chance to meet them. But unfortunately, I didn’t, I didn’t have this chance.
27:53
Well, you had mentioned earlier that your dad did go through a little bit of bullying, which probably is a worldwide problem. Is that something that you confronted as well as a child?
28:06
Well, yeah, of course, but I didn’t, I didn’t tell my parents about it, you know, because I didn’t want to make them, you know, feel that they are not protecting me enough, you know, I just didn’t want to give them this feeling. I just secretly started different kinds of sports, like bodybuilding, like boxing at a very small age, actually. And I became physically and mentally ready to defend myself. And you know, thank God, I didn’t have to use the strength against anyone because, you know, bullies are cowards, you know, they don’t do anything harmful when they see that the other person is capable of defending himself. So thank God, I was capable of defending myself, both physically and mentally. And I didn’t have any problems after after this from from any anyone,
28:59
your strength and your family strength is something that’s so impressive, because it comes from such a beautiful, peaceful, loving place. And I should have said this right at the beginning, but I’m with your culture. And now if if we ask anything that you feel uncomfortable answering or overstep any boundary, please, please tell us because I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation or impose on you because you’re being so gracious with your time and your story, which is, is beautiful. What did your parents relationship teach you?
29:35
As I said earlier, you know, they are people who, who are, you know, labeled as someone who are not, who is not capable of doing things like getting married, getting, you know, a job getting a house, you know, making a family in general. They were able to do so they were able to complete the each other, you know, my father and my mother has now some hearing problems. So my father always gives her a slight, you know, description of what’s going on or what the people are speaking, you know, they complete each other, you know, there is some aspects that my mother can do better than my father and some aspects where my father can do it better than my mother, I learned that we should not, you know, label anyone or and we should not, you know, judge anyone based on their condition or based on their, you know, diagnosis because, you know, first of all, this might make us look stupid, you know, when when these people whose home we have judged as people who are not capable of doing this surprises, and do you know, these things better better than, than us and these people who are, you know, labeled as this abled people can do some things better than people who are not called disabled that they so called normal people that taught me to respect, you know, every human being, regardless of their condition, mentally, physically, or condition in their religious aspect, or their race aspect or any aspect, just look to people as human beings just don’t judge don’t put labels on and on anyone. And, you know, that has helped me a lot in my life. You know, and I think that it will help me more future.
31:35
It’s so wonderful talking to you, you’re such a wonderful person to talk to. Could you just tell us how far along you are in dentistry studying and what your future plans are?
31:47
Well, I have one more year to graduate as a dentist, you know, my future plans are not very clear, you know, because the current situation here in Syria, the economical collapse, you cannot tell what will happen next year, and here in theory, and you cannot tell how you will be going to be able to do start your own job and start, you know, your own clinic, we as dentists to we have to, to, you know, prepare our clinic, we have to, you know, get all the equipments that we need, and you don’t know how you will be able to do with such things. But you know, my current plans are after graduation, I will have to practice two more years of dentistry in a small town, before I was I will be a be able to open my clinic in a large city, I will have to work with another Dark Doctor Who has his private clinic for two years or so then I will have to find a way to start my own clinic much start my own business. And that’s it maybe, you know, as serious as it is. And as, as Christians in the Middle East, most of us try to emigrate try to move to another country, because, you know, our civil rights here in these countries are not always protected. And I didn’t know if I told you earlier, but most of my uncles and ants live in the United States in Pennsylvania, were the only members of the ESA family who doesn’t have an American citizenship. So I think I will have to also try to the immigration to another country because it’s easier and it’s much safer to start a job and a career in the country. And of course, I will I will have to, you know, not go by myself. I have I will have to take my parents with me if this plan was spying happened. But you know, it’s not it’s not clear. Still not clear what will happen up one or two years during Syria?
34:00
Saturday, do you have a favorite childhood memory?
34:04
Well, of course, I have many favorite childhood memory. But one of my favorites was when I finished first Wait, you know, we’re in Syria, they give us you know, like a report or, or a paper and with the Oh my, our grades in different classes in the first grade. And all my grades were straight A’s. I didn’t have any B’s are these. And this paper or this report, we give them way to our parents to see how we did in school, all this stuff. And when I gave that, this paper to my parents, you know, they cried. They were happy to see their kid, you know, getting the education that they were not able to get you know, both my parents don’t know how to win, right? They were proud to see their only child as a little kid who is doing well at school which which is I think at that Stage is the the most thing that the parents concentrate is that their kid is doing good in school, hey, has a good, good friends all this stuff. So they were crying happy, fine. And they were proud. And I remember that my parents, you know, my father put this paper on his chest, the back towards him, you know. So the grades are shown to the, to the people in front of him and walked in the, in our neighborhood to show the people that this is my son, you know, this, this is my kid and this, his grades in school, look at him, he is doing well. And he’s our kid and he was you know, so proud, you know, and that feeling, you know, what was one of the best feelings that I ever experienced in my life, I was happy to see them proud, I was happy to see them smiling and happy about my my small accomplishment at that, at that age. And so I decided to always give them this, this emotions, always give them this moment of pride. That’s what I tried to do since that, since that time, you know, I’ve done a very good job in school, you know, and in ninth grade, we have like a, we call it a ninth grade diploma, before we go to high school. And you know, as the first grade, I was the first in my class, you know, and they were, again, very proud and very happy. And I love I love. As I said, I love this feeling, I love to give them this experience. And here we are today. You know, as I said earlier, studying dentistry here in Syria is something that has a high social respect, and very high social value. So now they feel even more proud that they’re there smoking is now adopted and will become a doctor who treats others, you know, this very, you know, lovely memory. In my first grade, when I was six years old, that was the the moment that shape and sculpt what what I will be doing in future, you know, and that was the moment that kept me in the way that I’m in right now. You know, that was the moment that kept me doing the good things and staying away from the bad things, you know, and I don’t think that I will be here today, if I didn’t have these parents, you know, I have other parents, I don’t think I will be here today, you know, doing doing what I do? You know, I don’t I don’t know, you know, what I will be doing?
37:41
Well, it sounds like they were quite an inspiration to you in forming your life. Your story is an inspiration. Thank you, thank you so much. I’m trying I’m trying to keep it in like an interviewing headspace to ask you questions, but it’s, I just I love your story and I love I love every every aspect and approach have the respect and the the mutual respect and dignity and just just how inspiring and you know, I hesitate to say normal because I honestly think that kind of love and foundation and support is something the world needs more of, I wish it was something that was that was normal that everybody received that because you see these great benefits that come from just love, thank you for for sharing that are there any other like words of wisdom, did your dad ever sit you down for a talk and give you words of wisdom or anything that you that you held on to
38:48
I hold on to his actions more than you know, the more you know, he is a man of actions. And I believe that most of people down syndrome are just like me, you know, we the so called normal people tend to speak more than we do actually. And they are the quite the opposite. You know, I learned about honesty when I see him faking to others who are trying to to hide their mistakes, you know, in many, many funny situations, some of his colleagues or friends are so try to you know, when he when they do something, you know not good try to you know, just hide it or not shared with the manager or the boss of the of the work. But my father who has witnessed this action cannot hold it you know, and he swipe goes to this to this guy and tells them why in the eyes that he has done you know something not good and tells the boss that this guy has done something not good. And that teaches you about honesty that teaches you that if telling lies to people is not something good you know and it’s just one small lesson that I’ve learned from him, you know, you can learn about forgiveness from from them, you know, again, he might get bothered from a colleague of him, or a friend of him, and he comes home, you know, sad and maybe a bit angry, but he cannot wait until the next day to go to this person who have bothered him to say that he forgives him and he don’t want any problems, you don’t like actually to have any kind of negative relationships with any, any, any other person in his life, that teaches us about forgiveness. And, as I said, there was many, many lessons that I’ve learned from his actions, and I’ve witnessed him, you know, doing so I don’t know if I can, you know, just with a simple list of things that I’ve learned, but they are, they are a lot, you know, I cannot even describe them in our, in my words, but he was such an amazing parents such an amazing inspiration, my life, and He will always be
41:15
thank you for, for sharing that with us. And so heartfelt.
41:19
Our podcast is called, if we knew then. And so we like to ask guests, a lot of times, if there’s something that you know, now that you wish you knew, in your past,
41:31
well, I’m I’m very much happy and satisfied about my life. So my only note about this is that if I knew that, sharing our story could help many families around the world, you know, give them inspiration, and give them you know, hope or their little kids in the future. And, you know, change some of the outdated, outdated ideas about Down syndrome, then I would more, you know, certainly shared my story. Much, much time, you know, I wouldn’t, you know, wait until, until this time to share with you know, I would have shared, you know, long time ago to, you know, help the most people possible, you know, change these outdated ideas about dancing that many people still have until this day. And that’s, that’s my only goal, but Saturd so wonderful talking to you. Thank you, thank you so much. And again, sorry about my English skills, and I hope all the the listeners get my ideas, just the way I want them to be. Thank you so much for having me.
42:44
Crystal clear, yeah, I
42:45
want you to know that your your new skills are, are perfect. And, and your message, your message is beautiful, and definitely came across very clear. And we appreciate, we appreciate you sharing it. And as a mom, and an advocate. I’ve learned a lot from you even you know, a lot of what I speak over Liam, as far as his more than a diagnosis and and can sometimes be frustrating having to always speak that. But what I think I’ve learned from you is one the importance of that for being an advocate, but also to not speak it because it’s where it matters, which is in our home and in Liam’s life. It doesn’t matter.
43:37
Yeah, yeah. And I wish him a bright future, you know, and wish you all the best in life. And thank you so much for having me. And hopefully in the future we will be you know, able to even change more and help more people, hopefully, with the help of with people like you. And again, thank you so much for having me.
44:01
Please, personally tell your mom and dad for us that we were thinking of them. Where were we had a great time talking to you. We’re proud of their son. And we’re really just so blessed to have you in our lives even for just this little bit of time.
44:17
Thank you. Thank you so much. I will definitely tell them and thank you so much.
44:23
Please follow us on Twitter @ifweknewthenPOD you can drop us a line on our Facebook page @ifweknewthenPOD or visit our website https://www.IfWeKnewThen.com to send us an email with questions and comments. You can join our mailing list there and get alerts of future podcast episodes. Thank you again and we look forward to you joining us on the next episode of IF WE KNEW THEN.
If We Knew Then - A Down Syndrome Advocacy Podcast 