Just Be There | Down Syndrome Awareness Month

When we first found out about Cody’s diagnosis, when we went through his heart surgery, when he spent a month on a ventilator fighting for his life in the hospital and now with the occasional frustrations of fighting for what is best for Cody, we have friends that support us.

Some of the acquaintance type friendships have become stronger while some of the strongest friendships became weaker.

I get it.

I’m not hatin’.

I know that for some, it was/is hard to know what to say, what to do, how to be there.

Here’s the thing…

You don’t have to know the right words.

You don’t even have to say a word.

A hug of encouragement will suffice.

When we go through our downs, we just hope that you will be there.

When Cody was in the hospital, his dad and I took shifts to stay with him. One would spend the day at the hospital while the other was home with DJ. In the evening after visiting hours, one would go home with DJ while the other stayed the night. We did this for a total of over a month.

We had visitors, but they were few.

Friends and family from out of town called frequently and flew in occasionally to visit. We treasured those visits.

It was hard at the time to understand why local family and friends didn’t visit.

To be honest, at the time it hurt.

The ones that were closest to us came around maybe once or twice in over a month’s timeframe.

That hurt.

For awhile, I held a grudge, but then I realized that people handle things differently.

I’m the type of person that wants to be by your side and help when I can.

At the time, I couldn’t understand why close friends couldn’t be there for me when I was falling apart, when I needed a shoulder to lean on and just someone to be there.

It took awhile, but then I understood.

They didn’t know what to say.

That is the #1 thing I heard through the first few months of Cody’s life, “I don’t know what to say.”

I wish they had realized that we didn’t want them to say “just the right thing”. That wasn’t what we wanted to hear.

We just needed support.

We needed momentary distractions from life inside the hospital.

We needed to laugh more.

We needed to be reminded of what was going on in the world outside those ICU doors.

We wanted to know how your day was, what the weather was like, what was happening on our favorite TV show….

There usually aren’t “just the right words” to say when someone is going through something stressful.

Don’t look for those words before you offer support.

Your friendship is all that is needed.