Any parent will tell you that there are milestones in a kid’s rise through K-12 education. Today is one of the big ones when Julia and her friends leave the elementary school where they began their career and middle school looms before them.

The anticipation and dread has electrified the air around Pembroke Elementary for the past few weeks, resulting in more than a few kids acting out and lots of emails home.

Julia’s no different on this one. Her outbursts are normally tamped down by a quiet intervention from her teacher. But at pick up last week, she was escorted to the car (never a good sign) for a quick conversation with Jocelyn. A longer conversation with Julia followed that evening and all agreed that she could start fresh the next day and “be kind.”

But today, on fifth grade graduation, all of that is behind us – and a new, uncertain future lies ahead.

It’s a day I questioned would ever happen, to be honest. And I know the exactly when I started wrestling with that doubt.

It was June 17, 2010. Jocelyn was five months along in her pregnancy with Julia. The exact sequence of events is a little fuzzy, but everything in our life had gone utterly sideways.

A month earlier, we were told that Julia‘s life would be different from a typical kid. We saw the heart defect on ultrasound. Amniocentesis results confirmed a diagnosis of Down syndrome. A multidisciplinary consult was convened and perinatal, neonatal, genetic, cardiology and fetal imaging specialists laid out what we could expect in the near term and beyond.

In those fraying weeks of May and June 2010, I moved robotically through life, got mountains of scary information and tried not to hyperventilate. I also got a call from a friend and neighbor asking if I could provide a photo booth for her daughter‘s fifth grade graduation.

Considering my mental state, no one would have blamed me for declining; but Jen is the kind of friend you don’t say “no” to (in the very best way). Maybe it was reflex, maybe I rationalized that I needed something to take my mind off things; but there I was at the local elementary school on June 17.

I was just starting my photography gigging back then; and there was plenty to do before the families arrived. So a lot of headspace was spent dialing in lighting, exposure and composition to where I wanted it.

But once my kit was prepared, I took a moment to listen to the program. The principal and teachers gushed with affection for this class of students, challenging them to hard work and to chase their dreams and passions. The parents and families beamed with pride for their kids.

And as I listened, the fear and confusion I had been wrestling with for weeks broke in and found a voice…

“Will a fifth grade graduation like this ever be in the cards for my little girl?”

I stood there at the back of a crowded gymnasium at Pembroke Elementary School and I don’t think I heard another damn thing for the rest of the day.

I was suddenly on autopilot as the program came to a close and the festivities began. For the rest of the event – even as I opened up and the line to the photo booth grew – some form of that question distracted me.

I took shots of individual kids…

“They’re so happy. Most of them will be going on to college. What is Julia’s life going to look like?”

And then they would gather friends for group shots…

“Will Julia have life-giving people in her circle who will see her as a true friend and not a class project?”

And finally, the graduates gathered their families for a picture to remember the day…

“What will we look like as a family?” AND “How will we survive without local family support?”

Suffice to say I wasn’t at the top of my photo game that day. Fortunately, young, happy, bright-eyed kids and families are pretty easy subjects.

All of that fear…

And yet, today, here she is. Twelve years later, Julia is refuting every misgiving of that scared father-to-be.

She has her friends around her. We have a supportive community nearby and blood family a phone call or a few hours drive away.

But new, uncertain waters lie ahead; and challenges that are yet to be revealed bring new anxieties.

I caught myself ruminating a few days ago as I looked at those photo booth images from so long ago. Image after image as I wrestled with new things that have come on the horizon. A few examples:

• Once you include preschool, Julia has spent nine years in the same building with basically the same staff and classmates. For a kid that doesn’t take well to “hard turns” in her routine, this transition to middle school is going to be tough right out of the box.
• There was relative ease in the earlier grades; but now an unmistakable and widening gap has opened up between Julia and her typical peers – intellectually and emotionally.
• But even with that gap, Julia is entering puberty like all of her friends. All of the complex feelings are there, but she has little ability to verbally express them.
• Parenting-wise, Jocelyn and I are going to have to find a new gear. The bag of tricks we used with our little girl just isn’t working with the young woman she’s become.

As I mulled over those and other fears, I could feel that familiar, bitter acid rise and churn in my stomach has I paged through those happy photos of a fifth grade graduation so long ago.

But then I came across this family shot:

That radiant mom hugging her twins? Her name is Carrie Cowdery. She’s one of the para-professionals on Julia’s support team at Pembroke. Their relationship is something otherworldly beautiful. At the time of the photo, though, our families had never met.

The picture above was taken before Carrie even made the career change out of medical transcription toward special education. Over the summer of 2010, she felt a call to pursue it and started with the school district that September – the same month that Julia was born.

I had to take a screen shot of the family picture and send it to her to make sure that I wasn’t out of my mind. Carrie confirmed that it was her and I was not crazy; but she was confused at how I came across the photo. I was nearly tongue tied explaining to her that I was the guy who took the shot.

Now I’ll admit there are times where I try to find meaning where there is none; but I was thunderstruck. There I was, sitting in my office, ginning up a catastrophic future for Julia in middle school and beyond – just like I had done for elementary school twelve years before.

And to bridge those moments of anxiety, God had placed a little deposit of hope in 2010. A friendly face that I hadn’t even met yet.

And I could imagine a quiet voice, deep with love and power saying,

“I took her from birth to fifth grade. Will you trust me to take her further?“

In 2010, Carrie’s life and career was nudged in a new direction for the good of so many (ask any student at Pembroke and they’ll know Mrs. Cowdery). And she is just one of a pantheon of good souls who have helped Julia get to the day I doubted would happen…

(ed. note – this is an incomplete pictorial tribute. We cannot forget the teachers who pushed on through virtual classes. There was Miss Eileen, the preschool teacher who delayed her retirement because Julia was going to be in her 3 year old class, and Vicki Muir, the Community Ed Coordinator who held a preschool spot for Julia while we battled the central Special Ed team over her placement. And, of course, the wide community of friends and encouragers along the way)

There will undoubtedly be detours in the coming years; and I’m sure that more than a few of my dreams for Julia will have to die so that God’s larger dream for her can unfold. But after the good-natured dope slap I got from God in my office the other day, and despite the challenges that are sure to come, I’m having a harder time believing we won’t find friends to add to this great community.

Derby Middle School – here. she. comes. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿