Winter Park Florist's unexpected detour

Forty blue and yellow pinwheels blow in time with the gusting wind, playing in tune to the sound of a baseball card safety-pinned to the spoke of a bike tire — gradual ticking leading to a constant purr.

Stuck in the mulched ground outside of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Florida (DSACF)’s Winter Park office, each pinwheel is tagged with the sharpie-scrawled name of the person for which it was purchased. Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, there’s a common link that has destined each name for its own spinning wheel — but it’s a place none of them ever asked or planned to be, said Edward DeAguilera, development director for DSACF.

“The whole concept is say you're getting ready for this trip to Italy, and everyone is going to Italy, all your friends and all your neighbors, and they’re all saying how great Italy is. So you pack up and get on a plane to go, but as you’re about to land, the flight attendant says, ‘Welcome to Holland,’” DeAguilera said.

You didn’t plan to go to Holland, he continues to explain, and initially you’re mad and confused as to why you’re not in Italy, but this is where you are, and you have to make the best of it. After all, Holland may not have pizza or Michelangelo, but it does have Rembrandt and windmills.

These pinwheels, he said, represent those windmills — a beacon of hope in an originally bleak situation. It’s an parallel drawn from a poem published by Emily Perl Kingsley in 1987 called “Welcome to Holland,” an analogy in itself for what it’s like to parent a child with special needs.

“The pinwheels are our interpretation of the power of that poem,” DeAguilera said. For the entire month of March leading up to and following Down Syndrome Awareness Day on March 21, DSACF is selling these pinwheels and placing them in the lawn outside its Wymore Road office to raise funds for its programs and call attention to the condition.

Across town at Winter Park Florist on Park Avenue, owner Joanne Brazell and her family are doing their own work to support the cause — only instead of pinwheels they’re collecting vases. And, her support is not just a month, but continually throughout her business — and forever through her family.

For every vase returned back for recycled use to the florist, the shop is donating $1 to DSACF and offering an incentive discount for the returner on their next purchase. The used vases are then gifted to another charity chosen each month to raise their own funds.

“I’ve wanted to do something to give back … but I never knew what to do or how to do it,” Brazell said, following that up with a big “until.”

That was until, she said, her figurative airplane flight took a bumpy turn toward Holland 10 days before Valentine’s Day in 2012.

Already in the midst of a high-risk pregnancy at age 39, an amniotic fluid test revealed her third child, and second son, was to be born with Down syndrome.

A year and one month later, her giggling and smiling 8-month-old baby boy, Ethan, reclines in her arms, his big blue eyes fixated on her face. He doesn’t have on his glasses today, deemed necessary for him after failing his 6-month eye exam, so his focus may not be clear, but there’s clarity in the smile on his face as Brazell blows a kiss on his belly. His giggle echoes through the shop, a sound he can hear clearly for himself for the first time this week following having tubes installed in his ears five days ago.

To learn more about how to purchase a pinwheel and programs put on by the Down Syndrome Association of Central Florida, visit dsacf.org

For more information about the Winter Park Florist, located at 519 S. Park Ave., visit winterparkflorist.com

Every month, Brazell said, marks a milestone in development and another step through the throngs of doctors appointments and meetings that come with having a special needs child — all while she and her husband work to keep up with their ever-growing business and other two kids, Natalie and Nathan.

“It is hard. I wouldn’t say it’s easy. But at the end of the day, it’s like, you come home from a hard day and them little smiles; [kids with Down syndrome] are the most precious children, the most loving… ,” she said. “… He’s just a ray of sunshine, he just really is. I wouldn’t be without him.”

Ethan’s Down syndrome is minor, but he’s still three to four months behind an average baby in development — and though the English immigrants have health insurance, medical bills still stack up.

Inspired by Ethan’s little ray of sunshine, Gary Lambert, owner of the Gary Lambert Salon neighboring Winter Park Florist, launched a fundraising campaign of his own this month to help the Brazells cover Ethan’s medical costs. His goal is to have 400 people donate $20 each, with about $2,700 raised so far.

“They’re great neighbors of ours, and everyone’s been so willing to help,” Lambert said, pointing out that it’s hard not to once you see Ethan’s smiling face.

“You could be having the worst day of you life, but then you see him … and he’s just the most amazing thing,” Lambert said.

There’s something special about the way he smiles and lights up a room that Lambert is always quick to notice, and Brazell is happy to acknowledge.

“When people say that about the children with Downs, that they are just so special, it’s like, yeah, you know, every child is special,” she said. “But when you actually have one, they are totally, totally special, they really are.”

She may not have landed in Italy, as the poem says, “But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.”

And in the eight months since Ethan was born, Brazell says she’s learned to love her newfound home in Holland — tulips, Rembrandts, windmills and all.