A l
oving father wrote a touching tribute to his
daughter with Down syndrome on her wedding day, praising her for her
achievements and wishing her a long and happy life with her
husband-to-be.
While blushing bride Jillian was upstairs getting ready to say 'I do' to
her love of 10 years, her father Paul Daugherty, 57, a sports columnist
for the Cincinnati Enquirer, was writing the 25-year-old a beautiful
letter in which he detailed how he used to cry over his fear that she
wouldn't be accepted by her peers, a fear, he added, that has gone
unfounded.
'In two hours, you will take the walk of a lifetime, a stroll made more
memorable by what you’ve achieved to get to this day,' he wrote in the
letter published by The Mighty. 'I don’t know what the odds are of a
woman born with Down syndrome marrying the love of her life. I only know
you’ve beaten them.'
Jillian, who works at the Northern
Kentucky University athletic department married her longtime boyfriend
Ryan Mavriplis on June 27 at an outdoor ceremony in front of 160 guests.
But two hours before Paul gave her away, the doting dad was watching
her get ready from the floor below, while committing his happy thoughts
about the day to paper.
'I am outside, beneath the window,
staring up,' he explained. 'We live for moments such as these, when
hopes and dreams intersect at a sweet spot in time. When everything
we’ve always imagined arrives and assumes a perfect clarity. Bliss is
possible. I know this now, standing beneath that window.
'I have everything and nothing to tell you,' the dad continued.
Paul, who wrote An Uncomplicated
Life, a memoir about raising Jillian, explained that he never worried
about her achieving academically because he knew he and his wife would
make that happen, but he admitted that he once feared she would struggle
to find friends.
'What we couldn’t do
was make other kids like you. Accept you, befriend you, stand with you
in the vital social arena,' he said. 'We thought, "What’s a kid’s life,
if it isn’t filled with sleepovers and birthday parties and dates to the
prom?"'
Paul recalled how he 'cried deep inside' when she was 12-years-old and told him that she didn't have any friends.
But he went on
to say that he shouldn't have worried because she is a 'natural when it
comes to socializing', noting that she was on the junior varsity dance
team in high school and spent four years in college classes
- continuously making friends along the way.
Paul also noted that Jillian has done everything that others told her she would never do - including get married.
Jillian met Ryan nearly eleven years ago on a
soccer field. Ryan's father coached a soccer league for youths with
disabilities. It was after soccer practice that Ryan asked Jillian to a
homecoming dance.
'A decade ago, when a young man walked to our door wearing a suit and
bearing a corsage made of cymbidium orchids said, “I’m here to take your
daughter to the homecoming, sir," every fear I ever had about your life
being incomplete vanished,' Paul recalled.
'Now, you and Ryan are taking a different walk together. It’s a new
challenge, but it’s no more daunting for you than anyone else,' he
added. 'Given who you are, it might be less so. Happiness comes easily
to you. As does your ability to make happiness for others.
'I see you now. The prep work has been done, the door swings open. My
little girl, all in white, crossing the threshold of yet another
conquered dream,' Paul continued. 'I stand breathless and transfixed,
utterly in the moment. “You look beautiful" is the best I can do.'
'Jillian thanks me. “I’ll always be your little girl" is what she says then.'
'“Yes, you will," I manage. Time to go, I say. We have a walk to make.'
After Jillian and Ryan said 'I do', they headed to Hilton Head Island
for a week long honeymoon. In case of an emergency, they were joined by
their four parents, who stayed in a condo half a mile down the beach, so
they could have their privacy.
'Jillian and Ryan have lived together for nearly two years, so
self-sufficiency isn’t an issue,' Paul explained on his blog. All we had
to do was set them up: Rent them an umbrella and two chairs, tell them
about the hotel’s courtesy shuttle to local attractions, remind them
that sunscreen use wasn’t optional.'
He added: 'In most ways, they’re already like an old, married couple. In
others, they’re delightfully not. Since their wedding day, Jillian and
Ryan seem to have a renewed appreciation for what they mean to one
another.'
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