Markeva Jones-Parker is my name. I live in New Boston, Ohio, with my husband, Collin, and our four children: Tony (short for Antonio), 12; Colinda (10); Wendell (8); and Spirit (6). I am a homemaker; my husband, meanwhile, works for the city, cleaning toilets. It's not the most glamorous way to make a living, but it pays the bills.
Collin's done this now for ten years. He is very good at what he does.
Our kids are our world. Our youngest is especially so. She has special needs. She was born five months premature, weighing only 10 1/2 ounces at birth; doctors did not hold out any hope for her to survive. Yet survive she did, and this is why we gave her the name of Spirit. She may look fragile on the outside, but inside, she is anything but.
As a result of her very early birth, Spirit Niccole has serious physical needs. She is blind, nonverbal, and obviously cannot walk or feed herself. She can hear, though, and she is very good at communicating. She communicates with her face and eyes, and with sounds; her sounds are happy or sad, depending on how she is feeling.
Wendell, Tony, and Colinda are very good with their little sister. They are more than willing to help feed her (she is fed by a tube in her belly or in her nose), change her clothes or her diapers, get her up in the morning, and help with her physical therapy, stretching her limbs, and making a game out of it. They have learned about compassion and caring for others, just by being with their little sister, and I am very proud of all of them.
The kids love to make her laugh or spend time with her, reading to her, teaching her things, and taking her for walks. Spirit loves the fresh air and the feel of the warm sun on her face; she also loves the sounds of the world outside our home and the feel of fuzzy pets who come up to her wheelchair to say hello to her. Everyone who knows our youngest daughter just loves her to pieces!
Spirit is very popular at our church. Everyone knows her and always come up to her to say hello. There isn't a person there who hasn't been touched by her courage in some way.
We teach the children here at home. Or, actually, I do, while Collin is at work. We are raising them to love God and teaching them with Bible-based principles; we want them to have a sense of fulfillment and purpose in their lives. Because they don't attend public school, they aren't exposed to the ways of the world that much; they get enough of that from some of the shows on television. We are very strict Christians, and we want our children to know how to handle non-Christian based situations in the way that God would want them to.
Well, the phone is ringing, so I have to run. It's also about time to wake Spirit up from her nap. I will write in here again soon; until later, this is Markeva Jones saying so long and God bless!
~Markeva.
