Raised To Love Others

Today's post is extremely personal, but is something I want to "archive" for our family history for years to come. It is on the longer side, with a little more background into our family.

We've been amazed by the support felt. This has been an opportunity to get to know people that would have never otherwise known about us. We are just a normal little family, trying to make it through life. All we really want is to teach our kids to love the Lord and to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ. When we made our first blog post I had never really posted anything online before. I had to show Sharalee how to even make a post on FaceBook. Since then our circle of friends has grown. We made a simple blog post, and shared it for our family and friends to read. We then asked our friends to share it with others if they felt the desire to do so.
This blog site gives us a report on how many people visit our blog page, and it also gives us a report of the country in which the person visiting the blog is from. So I looked at it earlier today, just out of curiosity really. In the past month people from over 30 countries have visited. Blame it on the ease of social media these days (and our desire to ask for as many prayers for Koby as humanly possible). We opened this up to the public, not really thinking much about it. But many amazing experiences have happened by our friends sharing this site with their friends from around the world. We've had so many encouraging messages from strangers that it's nothing short of a miracle.

I bring this up only to help show that a very large majority of the people that read our messages do not know us. With that in mind, I wanted to take a moment and share something about Sharalee. It's Sunday evening, and she is up at the hospital to sleep for the night with Koby while I am home with our other five kids. So she can't tell me not to post anything about her because she isn't nearby to stop me! She wouldn't want me to draw any attention to her. And I strategically haven't told her of my intentions to share this. Bare with me in regards to the length of this post. What I have to share needs to be said...

The leader of our church congregation came over to visit us the Sunday after Koby was born. At this point we weren't even sure if Koby was going to survive more than a few days. He made a comment to us that was extremely inspired, even though he didn't know about Sharalee's background. He said that during church he looked at our family sitting in the congregation and felt that if "anyone can handle this it is your family. You guys seem to be able to handle anything, and no one will be more PREPARED to take care of Koby than you are."

When it looked liked Koby was going to pull through it became clear that he may have more physical challenges than most people. Brain trauma can be that way. But this didn't really phase us. It especially didn't phase Sharalee. She said to me, when we started facing this reality, "that's fine if that (meaning he has some physical limitations) is the outcome. We know how to deal with that." And that was basically the end of the discussion about any special attention he may require.

A little on her background: Sharalee's parents started working at a group home for women with special needs in November of 1980. They were college students. It was their job. Sharalee was four months old. Her parents lived with between 5 to 8 women at a time that had a wide variety of challenges, such as down syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome. They had a wide variety of abilities and function. Some could read and write, some couldn't. Some wouldn't say much while others would talk and talk and talk. What started as a college job has turned into a lifelong labor of love from her parents. These women were considered mild to moderate functioning women. They were taught to work, have jobs, be social, and communicate with everyone around them. On top of helping these women they've raised seven daughters and one son of their own. Wow!

For the past thirty five years Sharalee's parents, Howie and Sharon, have had at least three of these women with special needs live with them. They aren't blood relatives, but they grew to love these women. We all call them "the girls". When the group home program was ending in ~1981 her parents were given the opportunity to select three of the women to stay with them. So Sharalee lived her entire life, from the time she was four months old until the day we got married, with these women. They've just become part of their family. they still live with her parents today. Sharalee was given twenty or so years of training and preparation for motherhood.

We don't know yet what specific challenges await Koby. And frankly it won't matter to us. That's really my point in all of this. We will love him, which will be easy to do because of how amazing he is. His ailments and challenges may be very noticeable or not noticeable at all. It won't change anything to us. The Lord knows each of us, and knows what we can handle. He prepares us to face all of our trials and challenges.

We feel EXTREMELY LUCKY to be Koby's parents. We are lucky and honored to be able to teach him to grow and mature throughout his life. He will be taught that he has amazing abilities and can achieve miracles.

I am thankful for Sharalee's parents. They have taught her to love others and to serve others. Her parents still care for these sweet women. Sharalee's mom Sharon will wake up early tomorrow morning, just like she has for the past 35 + years, and will help them get going in the morning. When "the girls" get home from work tomorrow night Howie and Sharon will make dinner for them, and then sit down at the dinner table to eat with them. When it's time for bed tomorrow night she will make sure they have taken their medicine and brushed their teeth and have everything ready for the following day. And they do this day after day after day. No one has ever written about their service publicly. They do this without any praise. It really has been an amazing thing to watch from my perspective. I believe our Heavenly Father knew what kind of mother Sharalee was raised to be, and He knows that Koby will be in good hands.

Here are some pictures of Sharalee's life growing up with "the girls."





Sandra holding Sharalee as a young toddler.



Sharalee following Nora around.



Sharalee at the age of 2 or 3 with the women from the group home. Her dad is standing behind her on the right side.




Nila and Sharalee.




Family trip to Sea World with "the girls" Nora, Nila, and Koni. By now Sharalee had four other sisters (two more sisters and a brother would eventually follow.)




Trip to the beach with Koni.




Another vacation together.




Sharalee and Nila and red head Cammie.



Sharalee's Dad, with sisters Kelsey, Tasha, and Kim. Nora and Koni are on the right.




Trip to Disneyland. Nice fanny packs :)




Sharalee and Koni with Nila and Cammie in the background. (Koby has similar red hair to Cammie).





Trip with the group home girls to Mexico.




The Nelson family on our wedding day. L-R *Nora, sisters Tasha, Kelsey, Kim, Howie (Dad), me, Sharalee, sister Kim, brother David, Sharon(Mom), *Koni, sisters Whitney, Cammie, and *Nila.