What's in a name | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: What's in a name | Previous Challenge Entry
By Margaret Watson
05/18/06
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What's in a name?

My daughter answers to many names,Joanne, Jojo, the commonest being Jo, but it might as well have been Joy. It's a theme that runs through her life. The joy at her birth at an age when I might well have been considered too old – the joy of hearing that first yell of indignation when she was pulled protesting into the world – and it was pull too – she never was good at geography we always say, because at the last minute she decided to try and come out sideways – not recommened.

We were told a few hours after she was born that Jo had severe physical and mental problems and it would be better to leave her in the hospital and go away and try for another child – this to a mother who had already had 4 miscarriages. But the first time I held her I knew that they were wrong. I have held many mentally retarded children in my time – some floppy, some tense, but none like Jo.Yet I wasn't a hundred percent sure at that time, but still I found peace and joy at her birth. They were wrong about the retardation, but the physical problems were if anything underestimated – she also had brittle bone disease, a degree of deafness and she stopped growing at 20 months of age.. I mean totally, not slowly, and she was already so small that she had only just grown out of first size clothes. But when she was 4 treatment became available – she has never quite made up, but at least now she doesn't have to jump up on to worktops to reach. There were regular trips to hospital of course. They had a Wendy house in the waiting area – they joy when she banged her head on the lintel one day 'I',m too big. I'm really too big for something!'

The hardest part was sometimes convincing the doctors. They still read a description at the front of her notes that says severe mental retardation. She is tiny, so when she was smaller people who didn't know her treated her like a baby – but she soon put them right.

The joys are different nowadays – she has been on a preaching tour of Italy and acted as translator for the group – despite the fact that she was to some extent lip reading. More recently she went to Gambia and met with local school children. When she related her adventures her joy was bubbling out. She has this week taken her final university exam – We don't know what her future holds, but I know that she has a God given joy to share – oh and she can finally reach the top shelf in the supermarket!

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