Our Inspiration

The inspiration for Fireweed Farm Community comes from three important influences. First, Susan grew up in a small farming community where everyone knew everyone else. That sense of belonging and acceptance was a powerful part of her upbringing and strongly shaped her attitudes about raising a family. David later joined that community himself. One of the people in that community that went to school with both of them was a man who had significant intellectual challenges. At school, this man struggled to be successful but at home and on the family farm he was strong, knew the routine and significantly contributed to the health and wealth of his family. He was a nice person that everyone in the community liked and was known not for his disability but his ability to support the family. That memory made an impression on Susan as it became evident that some of her children would need to have support as adults as well.

The second influence was a movement in nursing home care that rose during the 90s and early 2000s across the US. The Eden Project was championed by Dr. Thomas The gist of this innovation in care was not only to treat each resident and staff person as a worthy member of the elder care community but to do it with a mindful inclusion of nature and the natural world. The thinking was that many of the elders of that era would have been raised in agrarian settings or at least have had some connection to nature. So, homes using this philosophy included gardening, animal care, and pets in their facilities.

Finally, the biggest force in shaping our thinking was our fourth child, Ababu. Ababu was born in Ethiopia at the height of the AIDS epidemic to a woman who was too sick to care for him. At the time, there were one million AIDS orphans in Ethiopia alone. Because she couldn’t care for him, she gave him to her own grandmother to raise and then disappeared. Sadly, Ababu’s great grandmother found caring for an infant while living in poverty herself was too much to bear. He became sicker and sicker until finally she turned him over to a “Death House” for babies suspected of having Thin Disease (AIDS) themselves. The caretakers there loved him up expecting him to die soon and desirous of giving him love in his last days, they fed and snuggled him as much as he’d allow. Due to one of many random sparks of serendipity, doctors from the World Health Organization came to the Death House hoping to help with any babies that could be saved. After running tests and realizing that Ababu didn’t have AIDS or any other known disease, the doctor asked the woman in charge if she had tried soy milk with him. She had never heard of soy milk but when the doctor gave her cash of his own and sent her into the city to buy some, she brought back soy milk. Within hours, Ababu’s cheeks started to fill out. Within days, he started to seem healthier. The visiting doctor later reported that Ababu would have likely died within a few days had they not realized that all that was wrong with him was lactose intolerance. Once he was healthy, he became available for adoption. He was originally matched with a family in Connecticut but they declined the match, worried that his malnutrition might have long term effects. When we saw his photo, we knew this was our son and accepted the match. It turned out the Connecticut family was right that there were long term effects. We’re so grateful that they didn’t see past that since we wouldn’t have had the chance to have this remarkable boy, now a man, who says every day, “This is the best day ever!” Ababu is the Boy Who Lived and he more than anything is the spark that lit the fire of Fireweed Farm.