"The best thing you can do for your son is give him a sibling." |
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Rachael Mendez swallowed hard, trying to digest what her son’s doctor was saying. It wasn’t the first time a physician had suggested having another child. And she and her husband would love to ― but couldn’t everyone see it just wasn’t in the cards?
Rachael and Edgar had tried. Nicholas had been a wonderful two-pound Valentine’s Day gift to the Virginia couple in 2012. But then came multiple miscarriages and even the stillbirth of a daughter. Rachael’s body barely pulled through the losses. Not to mention that Nicholas had Down Syndrome, alongside a full calendar of intervention therapies and medical appointments.
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Maybe Nicholas was meant to be the only mini-Mendez. Maybe a project would help Rachael focus on something else. Maybe a reunion of her best high school friends was just what she needed! |
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“We hadn’t seen each other in like 15 years, and I found out one of them had adopted a little girl from China,” Rachael remembers. “She gave me her Shutterfly account information for a PowerPoint update I was making, and I started reading her story.”
That story led to researching what life was like for kids in other nations with disabilities. What she found shocked her, including children with special needs being warehoused until their (usually early) deaths. The grieving mother had a crazy thought: since she and her husband were already raising a son with Down Syndrome…why not twice?
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“I couldn’t bear the thought of all these children out there without families,” Rachael says. “And we could provide the same life Nicholas had for another child. It made perfect sense.”
Initially, Edgar, a pest control manager, disagreed. But Rachael kept digging, finding Reece’s Rainbow through a Google search. Suddenly, a handsome face with almond-shaped eyes gazed through her screen. Bodey was three years old and had been abandoned in China over his Down Syndrome diagnosis.
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Rachael fell in love. Soon enough, Edgar did, too. So in 2019, four-year-old Bodey became Bodey Ying Mendez ― a bit of three cultures.
“Whenever the school calls, they ask if we need a translator,” Rachael laughs. “I’m Caucasian and don’t give any explanation. It’s really quite funny.”
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Bodey came home with bones “sticking out of his hips,” ears clogged with wax, completely mute and unable to sit in a chair without falling off. The Mendezes got to work, getting their new son a hearing aid, eye surgery, therapies and treatment for a raging H. pylori infection that kept Bodey from eating normally.
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“It took almost a year and a half to diagnose the problem, and it was so severe it caused gastritis and stomach ulcers,” says Rachael, a Fairfax County employee. “He had learned that food hurt, so he tried not to eat.” |
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But really, his new mom says, that was the worst of it. “He’s not the same child we brought home at all!” Rachael says. “It’s so amazing how Bodey blossomed from this kid who didn’t react or even say yes or no to someone, to a kid who has opinions and tries to make you laugh and interacts with everything around him. It’s been a pretty night-and-day difference.”
And that’s not even the best part. That would be the relationship between Bodey, now seven, and Nicholas, 10.
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“Those two are a match made in heaven!” Rachael enthuses. “They are the most perfect polar opposites you could ever imagine, so they really complement each other. It’s been the most amazing process I’ve ever seen.”
That truth really hit home during lockdowns. With a compromised immune system, Nicholas ― who also has autism ― was especially vulnerable to Covid-19, avoiding social situations. His only playmate was Bodey.
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“Thank God for Bodey!” Rachael says. “He fixed our whole family, he really did.”
Rachael and Edgar dream of their two sons getting an apartment together someday. “Hopefully they won’t burn it down,” she jokes. The two are decidedly forever brothers living in what their mother calls their “happily ever after.”
“Bodey was meant to be ours, and we were meant to be his,” Rachael says. “It really just has been that perfect.”
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And exactly what the doctor ordered. |
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Crystal Kupper is a freelance writer specializing in magazines and special projects. Since earning her journalism degree, she has written for clients such as Zondervan, Focus on the Family and the Salvation Army, among many others. |
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REECE'S RAINBOW | www.reecesrainbow.org |
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