Shéri. Shéri Brynard

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СКАЧАТЬ a bit like me, so he immediately began teasing her and cracking jokes. It was difficult for me when we announced our engagement. Sometimes I was heartbroken knowing that dearest Shéri would never experience the wonderful feeling of being engaged and getting married.

      The older I get, the more I want to protect her. I want to protect her against any hardships in life, in times of sadness, when she might feel that she doesn’t belong. But I can’t always do that. And that sometimes makes my heart ache.

      Shéri’s story, as well as her strong belief, strengthens my own belief time and time again. God says in his Word that He looks after his children who praise his name. I sometimes wonder whether some people are jealous of Shéri’s success, people who do not have the faintest clue of the road travelled by her and my mother, and how difficult it sometimes was. But God still opens doors for them – every day, every week and every month – to share her story of hope with the world, because it is through Jesus Christ and extremely hard work that Shéri has achieved what she has. I also believe that the doors will keep on opening for as long as her testimony gives hope and remains to his glory.

      The way my parents raised me

      My mother has taught me to be independent. There was a time when I did not even know how to cook an egg. Now I can do that, and much more.

      When my mother and Uncle Sam went away for three days at the beginning of 2017, I stayed at home all on my own.

      I loved doing my own thing and looking after myself. I asked friends over and visited our wonderful neighbour, but I slept on my own and prepared my own, healthy food.

      When I fly to Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban to make a speech, my mother just leaves me at the drop-off zone at the airport. I know how to get my boarding pass. I read the notice boards and follow the arrows. The organisers of the conferences also drop me off like that afterwards. I go through security and have a cup of coffee at the Wimpy before I walk to the gate to wait for my plane. To travel like this on my own makes me feel very good about myself.

      I remember how, every Christmas in Bloemfontein, we acted out the birth of Christ. Marisa was the narrator, and Mary. Suzette was the angel Gabriel, and baby Jesus, and I was Joseph. Marisa told us what to do. I, of course, had my own ideas as well.

      My mother and father taught us that Christmas was not about the food or presents, but about God’s love for us, that He loved us so much that He sent his son Jesus to us. We celebrate this at Christmas.

      During my childhood we had wonderful Christmases in Calvinia with one of my father’s brothers, Gerrit, and his wife, Louise. On Christmas eve we’d open our presents after Uncle Gerrit had read from the Bible, and we’d pray. We also sang Christmas carols. On Christmas day we went to church. One year, when Zettie was still small, our family sat in the front row of the church in Calvinia. All of a sudden the minister announced that there was a mothers’ room. He clearly thought that my mother should take the three of us there, but he obviously didn’t know that we were used to going to church. We knew all about keeping quiet and behaving in church.

      The first cruise the Brynard family took was on the Sinfonia. My grandmother said she’d pay for me if my parents paid for themselves and my sisters. I shared a luxurious cabin with my gran, but the one my father, mother and sisters shared was tiny. If one of them stood, the others had to lie on their beds.

      It was the holiday of a lifetime!

      Christmas on board was the most wonderful ever. I will never forget that Christmas eve. Late that afternoon the rest of the family came to our cabin, my dad with the Bible under his arm. We read from the Bible, prayed and opened our presents, and then joined the other passengers.

      The waitresses and young women who were responsible for all sorts of wonderful programmes at night, were sad. They were feeling homesick because it was Christmas. My father and mother noticed. They comforted them, hugged them and asked them about their families back home. Some of them even cried a little. But I think it meant something to them that, on that special night, my parents were almost like a second father and mother to them.

      Bit by the travel bug at three months

      If my father and mother succeeded at one thing, it was to ensure that the travel bug would bite me. I love travelling by train, boat, plane and bus.

      When my grandmother looked after me when I was a baby, she got me to sleep by rocking me. I’m still mad about anything with wheels or wings that can take me from point A to B. I think I caught the travel virus in Germany, when I was still very small and floppy.

      In Germany, researchers developed cell therapy specifically for people with Down Syndrome. The theory was that lamb foetal brain cells could help to stop them ageing prematurely, enhancing their health and diminishing some of the physical traits. To complement the therapy, other therapies to stimulate the child were suggested.

      For the best results, the first treatment had to start within the first twelve months of a baby’s life. When my parents heard about it, they realised that they had only three weeks before the June holidays (by that stage my mother had already started teaching again) and that the December holidays would be too cold in Europe. The following year would have been too late.

      So during the June holidays, they took me for to the Kinderklinik in Aschaffenburg, for treatment by Prof Franz Schmid.

      We flew to London. My mother told me that the flight was no problem because I slept most of the time. I was three months old. We did a lot of sightseeing, and I was breastfed wherever we went.

      Many people were amazed to see such a little thing – I was very small for my age. They were so interested in me and made a huge fuss of me. A little girl wanted to know whether I was a boy or a girl. When my mother told her that I was a girl, she became very excited and declared: “So she can marry the prince!” Princess Di’s baby, William, Britain’s heir-to-be to the throne, was also born about that time.

      At the clinic my parents got to know an American couple who had brought their baby boy there. In her diary, my mother wrote that she noticed that I was much livelier than the other kids. She also noticed that all the parents there accepted and loved their children. Because all of them had children who looked and functioned differently, the parents soon bonded.

      One of the problems that people with Down Syndrome have is that we have hardly any nose bridge. This can impact on a baby’s breathing. And our eyes are easily infected because the tear glands can become clogged as a result of the poorly developed nose bridge. In addition, the facial skin can be quite dry because of clogged oil glands.

      These are some of the problems that they were trying to alleviate with the cell implants. My tear glands were sometimes so severely infected that my parents feared that the puss might damage my eyes. The day after we left the clinic, the infection cleared. My mother believed that it was the result of the implants. The treatment had to be repeated every six months until I was four. The vaccine was later imported and this enabled Dr Karshagen to inject me here in South Africa.

      My mother says things weren’t always easy. She always wanted everything to be just right. She became very tense whenever she felt that she was not succeeding and not coping.

      But God did not abandon her. He started sending his angels to our house. And even to Pick n Pay. There, among the shelves, the wife of a professor once told her: “Classical music has a calming effect on babies. Let Shéri listen to classical music. And talk to her like you would to any other little СКАЧАТЬ