One very happy, hopeful, thankful family

Original Print Date: February 2, 1997

Six-year-old Rebeka Willett makes her way to her mommy's lap, expertly scaling the metal bars of her mother's wheelchair like a jungle gym on the playground.

She takes a seat on top of mommy, then grasps the controls of the chair with her fist. In seconds, her fingers find the "forward" switch.

She flips it. And they're off.

Mother and daughter race through the living room in the wheelchair, past the television and the sofa. They slow only to round the corner into the kitchen. After two laps inside the family's mobile home, they skid to a stop — three inches away from the dining room table.

Rebeka collapses with laughter. Her mother grins.

"We play like this all the time," Rebeka said.

To hear Rebeka tell it, there are a lot of things she does all the time. She eats mint chip ice cream. She takes tap dancing lessons. She plays house with her Buzz Lightyear doll.

Rebeka is a regular kid. She just happens to have disabled parents.

Mother Tammy, 36, has cerebral palsy, a disorder of the central nervous system caused by brain damage. A mild bout with the flu when Tammy was 10 led to encephalitis — inflammation of the brain — that led to a coma. Cerebral palsy was the result.

Tammy can't walk, talk, dress or feed herself. She can get around — with a wheelchair. She communicates with a laptop computer and a rudimentary kind of sign language.

Tammy has above-average intelligence. Her husband, Clarence, has a learning disability.

Reading and writing don't come easily for Clarence, but he feels comfortable reading bedtime stories to Rebeka. Clarence took special education classes and graduated from Modesto High School in 1983.

Clarence remembers when kids in school made fun of him, called him names that made him feel "not so smart." He doesn't care to remember what those names were. All he'll say is that they hurt.

He doesn't want his daughter to feel that pain. The two pore over first grade spelling words, simple subtraction and timed math tests at home four afternoons a week.

"I do as much as I can to keep Rebeka on track," Clarence said. "I work with her very hard. I don't want her in special ed."

There's no chance of that. Rebeka has no trace of a mental or physical disability.

Rebeka is — well — just like any other first grader.

On a recent school day, she built castles with red, yellow and blue blocks on the rug with the other children before class.

She completed addition and subtraction worksheets. She volunteered to clean up the play area. She passed a timed math test.

"She's just a normal, healthy, active, sweet, charming first grader," said Beverly Palmer, Rebeka's teacher at Hughes Elementary School in Modesto. "She's a sharp little girl."

Some credit her parents.

"They're wonderful parents, they're an ideal couple, they work together," said Shelli Margarite, the couple's former case manager and friend. "They're this incredible love story."

Clarence and Tammy met at the United Cerebral Palsy Association, where Tammy was a client and Clarence was a client and a volunteer.

"Tammy hinted around that she liked me," Clarence said. "She kind of pinched my bottom."

The couple married in June, 1989. They dreamed of having a child. Tammy feared a miscarriage. Others worried that the child would be disabled.

Rebeka was born by Caesarean on May 29, 1990. She was healthy. Clarence and Tammy thanked the Lord.

"Rebeka's like any other child," Clarence said. "Only I think Rebeka knows more than other children." Perhaps because she is growing up with disabled parents, Rebeka grasps concepts that other youngsters take years to understand. She realizes some people are "different."