this was a cool story.....

August 31, 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Trig Paxson Van Palin

[Rich Lowry]

I meant to post this the other day (so please don’t

take it as a response to Rick—in fact it might constitute pleading guilty

as charged!), but I got sidetracked. I found the Palin event Friday incredibly

moving. Partly because of Trig.

The sentimentalist in me would be willing to see anyone who is loving and

unselfish enough to welcome a Down kid into their family elevated to high

office.

When I was thinking of Trig, I was reminded of an encounter I had a couple

of weeks ago on the Delta Shuttle from Washington to New York. It was a mostly

empty plane, but I went all the back to the very emptiest part of the plane to

spread out and enjoy he quiet. And there was a man sitting in the very back row

who immediately piped up, " Hi. I'm Ian. Would you like to sit next to

me? "

He was a guy with Down Syndrome, maybe in his twenties. I declined the offer,

but we struck up a conversation. He was going to New York for a family

celebration, including for his birthday. I told him I had a birthday coming up

too and he lit up and came over to vigorously shake my hand in

congratulations—more delighted by my birthday than his own.

When the plane began to fill up a woman and her daughter came all the way to

the back with a huge bag. I began to wonder to myself if I should offer to help

them with it, when Ian popped up, told them he'd get it, and lifted it up and

shoved it in the overhead compartment. When two men came down the aisle with a

box they weren't sure would fit overhead, he intervened and told them it

would— " trust me " —and put it up for them.

He chatted amiably with his neighbors during the flight, and when we landed was

up out of his seat first thing to help that woman get her bag down.

From this brief encounter, I dare say Ian is friendlier, better adjusted and

more considerate than about half of the people on the streets of Manhattan or

San Francisco on any given day. Yet most of those people are perfectly

unperturbed by the elimination of babies with Down syndrome in the womb. To

hell with them. God bless Palin for bringing Trig into the world, and may

he shower those around him with as much sunshine as the gentleman I met on that

flight.

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