The Biggest Sister's Perspective

The following is from Ashleigh.  She had just turned seven when Davin was born and was still seven when we learned that Davin had cerebral palsy.  She has held him while he was seizing, stood up for him, and taken care of the entire tribe when Alan and I would go out on dates.  It never seemed a burden to her to have a little brother who was maybe a little different than other little brothers. 

When Ashleigh writes of her and Bethany and Cheney's protective nature with Davin, it is no joke.  I won't go into detail, but there could have been an incident where a younger child was in some hot water with my bigger kids and we decided that from then on, we would drive them to school instead of them riding the bus;-)
 

Here are her words....

When my Mom asked me to write how it was growing up with a sibling who had special needs, I didn't know what I could possibly write. I remember when Davin was born, but I honestly don't remember my parents telling us that he had cerebral palsy or how I reacted. At that point it didn't matter. Davin was my brother and he would forever be that to me no matter what label was placed on him.

 My other siblings and I wanted Davin to be around us for everything and that's what we tried to do. If we thought Davin could do it with us, he was right there next to us. We would drag him downstairs to watch TV with us,we would put him in the laundry basket and push him around, we would lay him on the trampoline and fling him around. We treated him the same as we would any other sibling. We didn't baby him because that's just not how we roll in the Hester family.

 All 3 of us other siblings are very protective of Davin. We grew up hearing lots of different things when we went out and we all knew when that happened we would give “the look”. Davin is the youngest and is in a wheelchair, so we felt like we had to step up our game. I remember that we would all get so mad if anyone ever said anything about him or to him even if it was just a curious little child who had no idea. I would always think, "What kind of parents do they have where their parents have not taught them that God made us all different? And how rude and hurtful it can be to stare or point at people who don't look the same as you."

 Growing up, I felt bad for those kids because they didn't have a Davin in their lives. I never thought of it as a hardship being his sister, having to give him baths, feeding him when my parents were away or just laying in bed reading him a book. Davin was considered normal to us kids because that's what we grew up with. Everyone else looking in saw something different, but to us it was all we ever knew and we wouldn't have traded it for the world. Davin changed our family and our hearts without us even realizing it. All of us kids have a different relationship with each other and none of us are the same, but I believe because of Davin it brought us all closer together. We may all live in different states now, but we love each other and the bond that the four of us have will never be broken.