Peter Spier, People
After I finished speaking to a group of financial advisors, a gentleman approached, thanked me for my story, shared a bit of his, and then told me he wanted to introduce me to a special family. He told me I’d love Amy and Ben, their kids, and their unbelievable story.
He was right.
Amy and Ben Wright were a couple in love.
They enjoyed meaningful work and two healthy children. As good as things were, their joy expanded with excitement about their third pregnancy.
But the pregnancy was more difficult than they anticipated, and their son Beau’s arrival didn’t go exactly as planned.
When the nurses placed Beau in Amy’s arms, the doctor came alongside with a warning. There were some indicators that Beau might have Down syndrome. The doctors weren’t sure and planned to do some tests. They would know in a few days.
Three days later, the diagnosis was confirmed.
Amy and Ben wept; they didn’t know exactly what this would mean. But they knew their lives had changed. They wondered: How would Beau learn to walk? Talk? Would he ever go to school? Get married?
Sympathetic encouragement arrived in the form of flowers, cards, and meals. One well-intentioned neighbor brought Amy dinner, gave her a mighty hug, and began to share how deeply sorry she was. The neighbor tried to offer encouragement, but was simply unable to. The sadness was just too great.
People treated this diagnosis like a funeral.
While it was certainly a disruption to their perfectly ordered life, Amy and Ben eventually accepted the news, embracing their son and the love he exuded. They knew the typical trajectory of parenthood would be altered. But they were ready to experience all the joy and beauty Beau would bring.
While raising Beau was not as easy as raising their older children, Ben and Amy realized quickly that, far from being a burden, Beau’s Down syndrome was an unexpected, delightful gift.
Beau exuded curiosity, a contagious enthusiasm for life, and a persistent joy, seen not just in his smile, but in his sparkling eyes. He taught them to not take things so seriously, to always find occasion to laugh; he revealed how easy it is to connect with others. Beau tended to embrace every person they encountered. While it took some getting used to, and a few explanations, it also provided countless opportunities to make new friends. All thanks to their incredible son.
As Beau grew, his parents received another unexpected gift: Amy was pregnant with their fourth child. Because of certain risk factors in the pregnancy they ran a battery of tests.
Amy remembers exactly where she was when her phone rang again. The physician spoke slowly, solemnly, reminding Amy that because of Beau, there were inherent risks with another pregnancy.
The little girl she was carrying had a condition called cystic fibroma. There was only a 25-percent chance that Amy would be able to carry this pregnancy to term. After a long pause, the physician added that there might be some chromosomal abnormalities as well, an indicator of Down syndrome.
At this point, Amy was focused on bringing her baby safely into the world. She wasn’t worried about possible abnormalities. She just wanted her baby to arrive safely, to have a chance at life, no matter what that looked like.
As they began to monitor her condition, the doctors kept Amy and Ben abreast of her daughter’s health. A second phone call confirmed that this little girl also had Down syndrome.
As the couple hung up the phone, Amy and Ben looked at each other and wept—but this time from joy, not from sadness.
Yes, they were aware that children with Down syndrome faced medical challenges. Yes, they knew that the trajectory of their child’s life would look a bit different.
But they had redefined perfection.
Perfection was neither looking like everyone else, nor competing with others on their scale of success.
Perfection was embracing each child wholly for how they actually were.
Beau had taught them things they’d learned from no one else in their lives. And when, a few months later, their little girl was safely placed in Amy’s arms, they were grateful for her health. And they knew she was perfect.
Thomas Merton, the celebrated monk and author, said, “The beginning of this love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.”1
Is that how you love your partner or spouse?
Is that how you love your parents, in-laws, neighbors, friends, and colleagues? Is it how you approach people from different ethnic backgrounds, political affiliations, religious beliefs? With a devout willingness, a resolution, to accept them perfectly as they are, not as you would have them?
Amy and Ben learned how to love their two youngest children for who they were. No molding or twisting to fit something they were not. But open to all that was different in them, and the beauty that came with it.
“We fear what we don’t understand,” they now say. “We fear what we don’t have experience with. We fear what we don’t know. And when you don’t know anything about—in this case—Down syndrome, there’s a lot of fear; there is judgment and preconceived notions about it. We had been through all of that. We knew we were going to win the lottery. Twice.”2
We are very good at making snap judgments. But often those judgments are wrong. And because of fear, we don’t step close enough to have those misconceptions corrected.
Amy and Ben want to alter the idea that we should feel sorry for people with disabilities. Amy and Ben know that this perception is wrong.
One out of four people will experience a disability at some point in their lives. If we can learn to recognize that those disabilities make us not less human but even more human, we can stop avoiding these people and instead celebrate them.
Amy and Ben have begun to do just that. As their two little ones grow older, Amy and Ben have become aware of just how few employment opportunities people with disabilities are afforded as adults. Eighty percent of adults with intellectual or developmental delays are unemployed.3 Yet Amy and Ben knew just how capable their children were.
So in 2016, Amy and Ben opened Bitty & Beau’s Coffee, a community coffee shop that employs people with IDD (intellectual or developmental disabilities). They intentionally hire individuals with special needs.
They do this not just to provide opportunities for employment, but also to create a community that doesn’t merely allow that some people are made differently, but that celebrates it. “Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is a new lens, one that changes the way people see other people. It’s about human value. It’s about acceptance. It’s about inclusion.”4
Although their business strategist suggested they add a drive-through window, making it easier for patrons to grab their coffee on the go, Amy and Ben wanted instead to create a space where customers not only received a great cup of coffee, but found an engaging, welcoming community in which to enjoy it. When people walk into Bitty & Beau’s, they see people pulling up chairs and having conversations that matter. Patrons get to know the staff, deepening their understanding of just how much people with IDD have to share and that there is nothing to fear.
“My employees are not broken,” says Amy. “The 200 million people living with an IDD are not broken. What is broken is the lens through which we view people with disabilities.”5
Our idea of success is often built on what people think of us. Part of the pain of having a child with a disability stems from how he or she is compared with other people. Amy and Ben know that loving what you have instead of worrying about how other people are going to judge you can allow you to embrace the disruptions in your life. And to recognize that those disruptions can truly bring blessings.
One of Amy and Ben’s employees is Elizabeth, a woman with Down syndrome. She takes orders with passion, conviction, and joy.
Recently, a young couple came in. When Elizabeth noticed that the woman was expecting, she walked out from behind the counter, gave her a hug, and congratulated the couple on the baby before going back to work.
About an hour later the couple came back to the counter. The gentleman stood back a few steps as the expectant mother asked to speak to Elizabeth. She explained that this was their first child.
“Our baby,” she said softly, trying to keep her composure, almost whispering so as to not let the world know the difficult secret she was bearing, “has Down syndrome, too.”
There was a momentary pause as Elizabeth considered the news.
Her face then lit up. As she pumped her fist in the air, she screamed a single word: “Yes!” She rushed from behind the counter and gave both parents a mighty hug.
Then she raised her voice and announced, “Everyone, I need your attention.”
The bustling coffee shop quieted.
With all eyes fixed on her, Elizabeth made an announcement: “These two people are expecting a baby. Their first baby. And the baby is going to have Down syndrome.” She pumped her fist into the air again and excitedly yelled, “Yes!”
The coffee shop erupted into applause. And the young couple dissolved into tears.
They had just discovered a place where they belonged.
Amy and Ben Wright opened Bitty & Beau’s Coffee shop in the hopes of changing the world. It’s working, in their community of Wilmington, North Carolina. But it is being noticed far beyond that.
Amy Wright received the CNN 2017 Hero of the Year award. In her acceptance speech, broadcast nationally, Amy concluded her remarks by turning away from the live audience and looking directly into the cameras. Knowing her two youngest were watching and up past their bedtime, she closed with these words: “Bitty and Beau, I know you are home watching this. I need you to know that you are perfect. I would not change either of you for the world. But I would change the world for you.”6
My friend, the world needs to change. We need to stop seeing differences as something to avoid, and instead see them as something that brings us together. That we all belong.
In our attempts to protect our children, we inadvertently signal that the unknown is scary. We teach them, “Don’t talk to strangers, don’t talk about differences, and don’t stare!” But inherent in those statements is the idea that other people aren’t to be trusted, that different is bad, and that wanting to understand is a mistake. It creates in their impressionable eyes a lens of us versus them. And once that lens is in place, it is very hard to remove.
We teach them to turn away from those who look different from us, rather than allowing their curiosity to remind us that differences can be invitations to connect, inquire, and learn.
The World Happiness Report considers trust to be one of the six factors that lead to happiness. “A successful society is one in which people have a high level of trust in each other—including family members, colleagues, friends, strangers, and institutions such as government. Social trust spurs a sense of life satisfaction.”7
Can you claim that factor in our current society? More personally, can you claim it in your office, your school, your community? Heck, can you even claim it in your social media feed? A collection of individuals, striving together with a high level of openness to differing opinions and trust in one another?
Few of us could.
All of us should.
When we teach children to be wary of those they don’t know and situations that are different, we shut down the inherent sense of belonging that once helped them to connect with one another and celebrate what it means to be a part of the human family.
We forget that we are all the same. That all lives are sacred.
That we can walk into a room and see it as filled not with strangers to be feared but with potential friends.
There is no piece that doesn’t fit.
We all belong, and we are all worthy of celebration.
Let’s stop standing off in isolation.
Let’s stop pretending to be who we’re not. And let’s instead pull up a chair, sit down with a cup of coffee, and celebrate how great it is to have the chance to go through life—together.