a one handed attempt

Yesterday was hand surgery day and so I write this with only my right hand as the left one is bandaged and sore.. alot of backspacing gonna be happening.

I watched a very inspring CMT broadcast of Extreme Makeover - Home Edition of a fellow UPs'er in Kentucky. It originally aired in Feb 2008. The Hughes family, there son Patrick Henry was born without any eyes and his limbs unable to extend fully. And yet his fathers love of music was given to his son as a shared experience, much like baseball for an able bodied bond of father son.. He taught him to play the piano while in his high chair and by the age of two was playing requests. He plays many instruments and writes music and can sing. His dad changed his position at UPS to a night shift when Patrick was born so that he could care for him during the day. So this has meant very little sleep in nineteen years. Patrick has excelled in music and is now at the Univ of Louisville in the marching band playing trumpet with the help of his dad being his mobility pushing the wheelchair for the band marching numbers.

Patrick is an uplifting positive individual who sees his blindness as an "ability" as he does not have prejudice towards what he sees in other people and gets to know others for who they really are deep inside and what they are capable of being. His perspectice is that sighted people have the "disability" to get beyond what they see first in a person. I know a lot of able bodied people who don't have a tenth of that kind of positive outlook in spite of there own "easy life" circumstances.. outstanding example . Patrick has a gift to give and in spite of his circumstances he sees the ability to acheive it.. very inspiring.

The home they built for the Hughes was fantastic, wheelchair friendly and with a separate apartment for independent living for Patrick. It was a gift for each of the 5 members of this loving musical family in many ways. Space being a big perk from the cramped home they were sharing. I enjoyed the reveal, as the family has taken in the first view of the new home, the shear surprise and excitement. And than the builder steps up with model for Patrick to be able to "feel" the new look of the exterior. He also reveals that they have not only paid off there mortgage, but collected $100,000 from a generous community to a humble family.

The show ended in the self sufficient apartment of patrick where he played them off the show on the piano of the country song "i believe"... which is so fitting for his life, and ours..... there all bawling, I'm bawling..

I have so much more to be grateful for and to live it out joyful that is for sure, no matter what my day to day circumstances are.