A friend recently loaned me a copy of the HBO mini-series from a few years back entitled Band of Brothers.

Produced in 2001, it’s the story of the Easy Company of the US Army 101st Airborne division and their mission in WWII Europe from Operation Overlord through V-J Day.

It was deeply moving.

I watched in awe of these courageous men who from the beaches of Normandy to the high mountain hideout of Hitler, encountered the unparalleled evils of humanity.

They watched friends die or get brutally wounded. They saw atrocities that are beyond our comprehension and yet most came home and raised families and lived the rest of their lives in relative obscurity.

These were ordinary men making an extraordinary effort.

Yes, some fell, and some collapsed beneath the weight of the moment. But these men made history, and without them the world would be a very different place.

As I interact with other parents of special needs kids, I am reminded of this series and of the uncommon valor exhibited in everyday life.

Like those brave men of Normandy, you didn’t plan for every circumstance.

You didn’t ask it; you simply responded and reacted to the challenge of the hour.

If you’re like me, you often feel unqualified and void of the skills needed to get the job done.

Some days it feels as if you were just dropped on the beach and you’re fighting your way ashore, dodging the bullets that rain from the sky.

Have you ever noticed that a seemingly simple task can quickly grow exceedingly complicated? Of late, we've been trying to arrange a trip with my whole family. Gone are the days of one car, Dad as the benevolent dictator and a few suitcases. We're all grown now, so this means multiples of everything: families, requests and demands and yes, even challenging problems that require sensitive handling. Negotiations for the excursion are now underway. For example, I had to guilt my sister into coming - but the persuasion comes with a hitch; if my brother bails out, she will too. I find it funny that while we've all grown up under the same roof with the same parents, we're all so very different. But, what else is new? When I look at my own children, I see three very distinctively unique people. Our tendency is to think that we treat them all the same, but the reality is that it's just not possible.

I come from a large Latin American family. Strictly, we’re something of a melting pot, but we mostly identify with my mothers side of the family. My mom came to the United States from Guatemala in her twenties, met my father, and married him. My father’s side of the family is small while my mom’s side calls anyone who ever stayed at my grandmother’s house a cousin. Any family wedding would require a large hall just for our side to be able to come.

Some years after all of my mother’s four siblings had moved to the US, so did my grandparents. Though my grandfather died when I was still young, my grandmother, (who still mostly speaks Spanish,) is still kicking at 96 years old.

My family had a summer tradition of going on a camping trip to a lake in Northern California. We would take up five camping spots with all of our campers and water toys for a week of playing in the water and soaking up the sun. Everybody would come, including my grandmother.

When Kyle, our oldest, was about two, my wife and I decided to go on the summer trip. Thankfully, my parents offered us a bed in their RV so we could have a place for our son to be out of the dirt if he needed, since he couldn’t walk or get around without his own brand of scooting.

While in the RV one afternoon, my grandmother turned to me and told me the story of one of my cousins. She told me that when my cousin was young she wasn’t walking like me or my other cousins so they rubbed egg whites on her legs and in no time she was walking just like us.

I have to confess I didn’t take this story well. I yelled at my grandmother “My son has cerebral palsy! Egg whites are not going to make him walk!”