More alike than different

My business cards came in today.  Yup, I’m getting mighty serious about the whole writing/publishing thing, and that means I need to have cards on hand for writing conferences.  Now that I’m going great guns with my revision of Sepia, and I’ve got several picture books ready for submission, it’s time to start paying attention to the business end of things.

Designing the card was interesting.  Not in terms of creativity (good templates took care of that problem!), but in terms of purpose.  I don’t have a lot of info on the front, but on the back I’ve got the quote from my blog title about being glad the thorn bush has roses, along with the words “thoughts on growing up with special needs siblings” above the blog address.

I felt a little funny about it, just the way I felt when I started this blog.  After all, this was my life I was talking about.  My family. 

Aside from the whole privacy thing, I wondered, “who would want to know about my experiences with Bobby and Jeannette?”  They were unique experiences—no one else would have had the same family dynamics, the same disabilities, the same birth order, etc., etc.  Why was any of this relevant to anyone else in the world?

But something I told my fifth and sixth grade students many years ago as they crafted their first major stories came back to me—practically smacked me upside the head.  “Every story is relevant if someone else can relate to the emotions your characters are feeling.  Something that happened to you can affect other people in ways you might not expect.” The experiences are unique.  The emotions are universal.

How else could we be moved by the tale of an orphaned wizard named Harry, or a six-year-old Southern girl named Scout, or an old fisherman named Santiago?

We don’t have to be wizards (or even orphans) to understand the joy Harry felt when he realized that he finally belonged somewhere.  We can ponder justice and prejudice, old age and the need for dignity and pride without battling giant marlins or being present at the trial of an innocent man.  We can feel fear and grief and pride.

So perhaps someone will relate to some of my real-life experiences with Bobby and Jeannette--growing up with love and loss, worry and guilt, joy and laughter.  And perhaps a door will open that didn't exist before. Because the disabled and their families may have their challenges, but we are more similar to the rest of the world than we are different.   

Welcome to our world.

Frances, neighbor Dana, Jeannette, and Bobby circa 1970