About Krissy

About Krissy

Krissy has cerebral palsy, she has lived with it since she was born. Just about the time she started to say a couple of words like Dada and Mama, she began to become different from other babies. As time went by Krissy didn’t progress and grow. She stopped talking and only sat in her chair and rocked back and forth. She would still drink from a cup and use a spoon to feed herself, but she would never talk or walk, never grow up, never get married, never experience the pain and joy of having children. For Krissy’s whole life she will depend on others to do the things that a normal person does every day without even thinking about it.

When Krissy was about three, with the advise of her doctors, Krissy was placed in a home for people who are unable to care for themselves. There she stayed for several lonely years. She sat in a bed day in and day out and listened to the noises coming from the hallway. The food was placed before her three times a day, if she managed to eat enough fine, if she didn’t, sorry. There was seldom enough help to give individual attention so Krissy never gained weight or grew to normal size. While she was supposed to be growing to her adult height, she got hardly enough exercise to help her legs grow to normal length.

After-- years Krissy was moved to a home that was better equipped and a little better staffed. There the patients were taken by bus on short trips to get ice cream or some other simple activity. Soon Krissy was enrolled in a “day school” where she received some physical therapy and other activities like swimming and finger-painting and singing.
Of course Krissy couldn’t actually sing or paint but with the help of the therapists and aides there she became more alert and aware of where she was and what was going on around her. So much so that it appeared that she looked forward to the chance to get away from the home for a few hours.

During those long, lonely years, Lee; Krissy’s Mom, came and visited almost every week-end. Lee would take Krissy on little outings and since Lee lived out of town, sometimes she would keep Krissy overnight in the motel and in the morning eat breakfast at Dennys. Krissy always had the “Grandslam Breakfast”, pancakes with lots of butter and syrup and all the fixin‘s. That was a great treat after institutional food all the time. Krissy was so thin that she needed to “pig out” once in a while. Sometimes Lee and Krissy would go to the mall where Krissy loves to shop. She would rock and laugh and hoot while some people stared and others pretend she wasn’t there.
I met Krissy when she was eighteen, some months before her mother and I were married.
Krissy is twenty-seven now and we all live together in Florida where Krissy is as happy as she will ever be. We try to get out as much as possible which helps to keep Krissy active. She can walk a few steps with a lot of help but she will never progress any farther. She will never talk because if a child doesn't learn to speak by the time they are aroung five or six, he or she never will.