Have you experienced a life-changing event that began on the closet floor?
Paul Taylor did. This singular event occurred late in the afternoon on Friday, March 6, 1987. The tranquility of the morning’s beauty shattered when Paul answered the phone. Shocked to hear his wife’s anguished words, 'Mark has Down syndrome.’ he collapsed to the closet floor.
So began Paul’s odyssey from despair to eventual gratitude for the gift Mark is. His wife’s words, the apparent harbinger of permanent darkness, would instead become the lighted beacon, beaming brightly, dispelling the blackness, and opening his eyes to one of his family’s choicest blessings.
What will you find in Mark and Me?
Paul writes as a father outlining his road of discovery, the challenges faced from Mark’s birth to today. Additionally, the book includes different but complementary voices from others who know Mark, which affirm the premise that those who are disabled influence people around them. Do not expect a guide on How to Raise a Child with Disabilities. Instead, it celebrates an individual life, one whose disabilities are unique gifts to bless the lives around him. A more accurate title might read, How to Train the Father of a Child with Disabilities.
The book will engage the reader with more than 80 stories, vignettes, and lessons, which are funny, poignant, surprising, scary, profound, and spiritual. Read the Snow Cave chapter where Paul and Mark were buried in a collapsed high mountain snowbank, and when Paul, believing they would undoubtedly die, was overcome by multiple waves of Divine love that words are inadequate to express.
Read how:
- Mark’s purchase of a Santa Claus suit developed into a much larger story touching not only those directly involved but others who followed on Facebook.:
- Mark’s definition of 'favorite, ’ which means everyone, has taught Paul to judge less by the outer trappings and see people as Mark does without judgment.
- Mark’s definition of 'hurry, ’ which is limited to one speed only, teaches Paul to slow down, observe, and enjoy people, situations, and circumstances that he would usually not notice.
Mark demonstrates qualities we can incorporate into our daily interactions more fully. How different would life be if we all adopted more of the qualities manifested by Mark and his peers?
Beyond these beautiful qualities, there is an even greater one. Mark demonstrates the virtues we must refine to enjoy eternal life. Mark’s barber summarized this by saying, 'Mark is where God is trying to bring the rest of us.’
Spis treści
Table of Content – SELECTED SAMPLES
1. THE BEGINNING
The Call
Mark’s Family
Why This Book?
2. THE FIRST YEARS ~ STORIES AND EVENTS
Heart-Rending Phone Calls
Mark’s Open-Heart Surgery
3. THE FIRST YEARS ~ LESSONS AND OBSERVATIONS
The Power of Vision and Hope
Mini-Abraham Experience
4. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS ~ STORIES AND EVENTS
The Escape Artist
’Mark Out. Mark Out.’
Saturday Morning Doorbell
The Golf Course
’Bishop, Go Fishing’
5. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS ~ LESSONS AND OBSERVATIONS
Mark Starts School-How to Change a Community
Our Mission Statement for Mark
Mark’s Baptism-How the Chapel Filled
6. THE TEENAGE YEARS ~ STORIES AND EVENTS
Innocence Can Be a Painful Teacher – The Police at the Door
7. THE TEENAGE YEARS ~ LESSONS AND OBSERVATIONS
Persistence – Part One
Not Limited by Fear of Failure
The Gift of Time to Repent
The Snow Cave – An Outpouring of God’s Love
9. A YOUNG ADULT: PART ONE ~ LESSONS AND OBSERVATIONS
Discouraged, Mad, or Sad? – No 'Agony of Defeat’
Special Needs Baseball
Finding Joy in Our Circumstances – What’s My
Disney Junior?
11. A YOUNG ADULT: PART TWO ~ LESSONS AND OBSERVATIONS
Lessons on the Atonement from the Emergency
Room with Mark
’Mirror, Mirror on the Wall’
Mark’s Concept of Favorite-Evidently There Can
Be More Than One
12. A YOUNG ADULT: PART THREE ~ STORIES AND EVENTS
Mark and the Unaccounted Cash – Busted by a
Mc Donald’s Breakfast
Persistence – Part Two: Attending John’s Funeral
Mark as Santa Claus
13. A YOUNG ADULT: PART THREE ~ LESSONS AND OBSERVATIONS
Illness, Death, and Prayer – 'Dad, You Lay Down
by Me Few Minutes?’
Spiritual Types in My Relationship with Mark
Advocacy
Dependency
Boundaries
Humble Requests
The Relationship between Sacrifice and Service
Mark’s Gift of Love – There Is Nothing Greater
Mark the Contradiction
14. QUESTIONS WE ARE ASKED ABOUT MARK
’Is Mark High Functioning?’
’Is Life with Mark Hard?’ – It Depends on What
Life You are Preparing For
’Is Mark Disabled or Handicapped?’ – Aren’t We All?
15. A FINAL WORD
O autorze
Paul was part of a large family growing up. He earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Washington in Seattle, which he put on hold for two years while serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany.After returning home, he met a beautiful young woman driving a bright yellow VW. She agreed to spend life with him. Susan and Paul are blessed with six children and a fourteenth grandchild is on the way.Paul served seven years in the US Army working in Military Intelligence. He earned an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, the internationally recognized business school in Phoenix, Arizona.He spent most of his business career engaged in commercial real estate investments working for various firms such as private equity, a pension fund, and an international bank. A core principle in his private writing is the role faith plays in dealing with challenges and that this life is a preparatory state for an eternal one. Different parties have guided him through periods of discouragement. He writes to assist others through theirs. Friends have encouraged him to publish to a larger audience. Mark and Me is his first effort with others to follow.
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