He's With The Band

Yesterday we attended a wonderful Christmas party organized by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital especially with children who have developmental and physical disabilities in mind. We are so glad we went because Rex had a blast. The party included a live band with four instruments (a tenor saxophone, a banjo, a trumpet, and a double bass) and because Rex LOVES music, he was immediately drawn in and fascinated. At first he stood and looked, then he clapped to the beat and danced. Finally the musicians were incredibly kind and indulgent to him, allowing Rex to spend the length of entire songs placing his hands right on their instruments and feeling the vibrations while enjoying the music. The band leader kept telling us, “It’s okay, he’s with the band.”

I am incredibly thankful to have had this opportunity and I can tell you that I cried some tears there, seeing my son, for whom I have been given a very grim prognosis, so happy, interested and engaged in one of his life’s greatest pleasures. It must be true for Rex what Ray Charles once said, “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.”