From the first that I can remember, my parents would gather us together for family prayer each night. In those prayers, we always asked our Heavenly Father to bless Rae, a sister that I had never met. All I knew was that she had a problem with her brain, and that she was in a special home for children halfway across the country. It wasn’t until her death and her funeral when I was 8 years old that I first saw her.

When I was 8 years old and a cub scout, a member of my den had epilepsy, and occasionally would have seizures. While he lived near the school I attended, he went to a different school. He wasn’t always treated with kindness, but I tried to be kind to him.

My own children were “normal” by the standards of the world, but when my son and his wife had their first child, the unexpected happened. Their little baby had an encephalocele. Sadly, she died after only 2 months of her life. Or maybe, I should say, “Happily, she lived for 2 months,” longer than the doctors expected. Three years later, their third child was born with Dandy Walker Syndrome, and happily, she is a now thriving young woman.

Some years later, my own life was turned upside down in an accident which resulted in a brain injury. Here I was, a highly educated and active person, all of a sudden, unable to use my brain as I had been used to. My abilities had to adapt and make some changes. I shifted to my lifelong dream, creating works of art.

As I was working on building my business as an artist, I was fortunate to meet a woman that has a daughter with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome. I was afraid to paint a portrait of someone else’s child. I have painted children before, with some level of success. But painting a child for someone else, and wanting to be paid for that painting, was something I wasn’t sure I was prepared for. I was scared. Happily, the painting turned out fairly well. This painting is now hanging in their children’s play room where it reminds them of the things that their daughter can do.

I then met another woman with a daughter with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Not quite as nervous this time, I painted a picture of her daughter. This wonderful mom and daughter suggested that I create a series of paintings of children with rare diseases, and make a book of them, telling the stories of the children and focusing on what they can do. What they CAN do.

And so, the seeds were planted. I couldn’t put aside the thought of creating something that could possibly inspire, encourage, and provide some measure of hope to children, mothers and fathers around the world who are dealing with something that no one wants to deal with, but because of love for their child, they put every bit of their life and energy to making the life of their child meaningful.

See What I Can Do is a book about celebrating the life, the abilities, the joy that each of these children can bring into our lives, if we will but allow them to bring that joy to us. Each painting and story in this book comes from the love of a parent, and a child with a life of possibilities. It may not be what the world sees as “normal”, but their lives enhance ours in ways that are so deep and so emotional that you can’t understand it unless you embrace them with all your heart.