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My sister-in-law Missy has lived with us for the past seven years. She’ll turn 40 next September and she has Down Syndrome. She often does things that make perfect sense to her, but it takes us a while to recognize her logic. Missy figures that that’s our problem.
“I hot!” she shouted and walked away from me. “Oh.” I went back to the den and told The Lovely Marianne about the windows. “She’s hot,” I said.
“I’m cold,” I said. “Me too,” she said. “So what do we do?” “We’ll talk to her.” Which is what I did. I sat with Missy and explained that she is part of a family, and that family members have to work together so that everyone is happy, and that if she is too hot she should tell me, or Marianne, and then one of us will turn down the thermostat. I took her to the thermostat, and I showed her how it works, which, as it turns out, was not the brightest thing I have ever done in my life.
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We were sitting in the den on a ridiculously frigid evening last December when I noticed that cold air was tumbling down the staircase. “You feel that?” I asked. The Lovely Marianne, my wife of many years, nodded. “It’s cold, isn’t it?” She nodded again. I stood and slogged up the stairs. Missy’s room is at the end of the hallway. Her door was wide open and so were both of her windows. The wind was howling into my house. I closed the windows. Then I went back downstairs and found Missy in the kitchen. “Did you open the windows in your room? I asked. She waggled her eyes, something she does when she knows she’s busted. “The windows in your room,” I said. “Did you open them?”
“She’s at that age,” Marianne said.| Dan Holohan - [Intro] | [Email] | [Website] |
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