http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/PrinceFamilyFTR.mp3
Each Thanksgiving, Interlochen Public Radio tells an extraordinary story of family. This year's story takes us to Suttons Bay, to a couple who've cared for dozens and dozens of children in state foster care. Find previous year's stories here.
The Princes have continued to take in children, some with significant disabilities, even as they've wrestled with their own disabilities and heartaches.
Meet Alan
Alan Prince, 18, has cerebral palsy. He has significant physical and mental limitations. He loves the radio, especially country music and the Christian station, so his parents say.
He also likes pressing buttons - all kinds of buttons, like the ones on my digital recorder.
Alan was adopted by Don and Cindy Prince after a year living in their home as a foster child.
A Little Girl With A Big Dream
Cindy Prince says she's always loved children.
"I used to tell people when I was just old enough to talk that I wanted 20 kids," she says. "Then I eventually backed it down to 10. But I've always wanted a big family.
"Sixty-some kids later through foster care, and seven of our own, we've kind of overshot that," Don says.
The couple had four biological children, and they've adopted three, including Alan and a girl named Kathleen, who also has significant disabilities.
"I always think God has got a sense of humor, so be careful what you ask for," Cindy chuckles. "He gave me my wish, and probably a little bit more."
This month, Cindy and Don Prince were honored by the state of Michigan as "Foster Parents of the Year." In granting the award, the Foster Care Review Board said: "Regardless of any disability, children in the Prince home swim, ski, go to the school prom, are active members in the church community, and enjoy all that life has to offer."
Living Without Limits
That's how Cindy Prince has lived her life, too. And her husband says he never saw her as a woman with limits.
Picture this first date, a little more than 30 years ago. Don recounts the story.
"I took her to a car race down in the Grand Rapids area and there was lots of bleachers and I says, 'Oh, there's an opening half way up the bleachers.' And at that time she was just this little thing and I was much younger and just grabbed her over my shoulder and we walked up the bleachers with just one arm."
Cindy adds: "And then set me down way up there where I looked down and went, 'Whoa! I'm actually going to sit up here? So far from ground!'"
It was the first time Cindy had ever been higher than the first few rows of bleachers. She was born with a disability called Arthrogryposis.
"What it actually means is that before I was born the joints and muscles stopped developing," she explains. "So it's basically a lack of muscle and movement. But I use braces and crutches and a wheelchair and - life goes on."
Sitting in a recliner, feet propped after rotator cuff surgery, Cindy Prince says the way she was born was no accident. An evangelical Christian she says God had a plan for her life as a woman with a disability.
"It's just something that he wants to use, and he says that he can use those with weaknesses even more effectively than others," she says. "So it's kind of a privilege, really."
Cindy's never let her limitations limit her dreams. That's not to say she's never doubted herself. As a young wife dreaming of motherhood, she wondered how she would carry a baby with crutches and how she would manage to get a child in-and-out of a crib during nighttime feedings.
Later, she wondered if a foster care agency would think she wouldn't be able to do the job.
"I was thinking that that would be a possibility. But it wasn't. It was far from it," she says. "But I had already raised four children, or was in the process of raising four children of our own at that point, and they knew that."
Letting Go
For Don and Cindy, the hardest thing about being parents and foster parents hasn't been Cindy's physical limitations. Don Prince says the good-byes have been the hardest, when children leave their home either to be reunited with biological family members or to be paired with another family.
"When we went into foster care, we knew that was part of it," he says. "We just knew that we could pour our lives into them for the time that we had them, and then have to let them go."
What Cindy and Don didn't know was that they'd also have to say goodbye to a biological child. Carrie, at age eight, was in a car with a teenage driver. Her mother watched from behind as the car pulled out in front of a semi-truck.
Cindy couldn't reach her crutches, couldn't get to the car to see if her child was breathing.
That was 11 years ago, and it the midst of tragedy the foster care system asked the Princes to make a choice. Two little girls living with them at the time were going up for adoption.
"That was extremely hard to try to even struggle with that decision at that time," Don says. He and Cindy decided it was best not to adopt while in the throes of grief. But that meant they'd say good-bye to two more little girls.
Choosing To Adopt
After that, they would go on to adopt three children. Two had lost their parents, and they needed a family that understood grief.
Twelve-year-old Kathleen was just adopted this year. An eager learner, Kathleen's mind is sharp. But she has limited control of her muscles and her speech. She can answer yes or no, and can say other simple words, and, when happy, she frequently squeals with delight.
Kathleen's a delight to her19-year-old sister, too. Shelly Massogla says she took to Kathleen right away. Like Kathleen and Alan, Shelly came to the Prince family from foster care. She had been bounced around to several homes over the course of about a year while she was in high school.
She says that was a sad time, and scary, but moving into the Prince home turned things around.
"Everything's changed," Shelly says. "I got everything I wanted."