One of our goals is to sponsor a special needs family every Christmas. This year I am dedicating 100% of the earnings from my Fall/Winter photo shoots to provide a super special Christmas for the Stark Family. Thank you so much to the families who have booked shoots with me. I sincerely appreciate your support and I know the Stark family does as well.
I interviewed the patriarch of the family a month or so ago and was so taken by him and his beautiful story. I hope you enjoy reading about the Starks. If you feel moved, please feel free to make a donation. We are so grateful for the opportunity to fulfill the wish lists of these five special needs individuals. It is our hope that this contribution will allow the family to focus on what matters most: being together for Christmas.
The Stark Family
God will take care of us.
That’s the mantra Will Stark, 60, has always lived by. Financial ups and downs, loss of jobs, loss of loved ones, his faith has informed his every move. Now he clings to that faith tighter than ever as monumental change -change for him, as well as his family, primarily his five special needs children- could be just days away.
It all began nearly 30 years ago while Cheryl Stark, Will’s wife, was caring for a 2-year-old girl with Down syndrome in her home daycare. One day the girl’s parents expressed concern about keeping their daughter, because most kids like her, they said, end up in institutional care. The notion of that – a special needs child being raised in an institution – did not settle well with Cheryl. She went to her husband, the father of their three biological daughters, and said she wanted to adopt a little girl with Down syndrome. That would be one less special needs child in an institution, she reasoned, and Will agreed.
The Starks started fostering children, but after the third child was given back to their biological parents, in a situation the Starks knew was abusive, they went to the Division of Family and Children Services and asked to adopt a girl with Down syndrome. A month later, they had Melody, now 27.
“Cheryl sat with the mom hours after she’d given birth,” said Will. “The mom said goodbye and handed over the baby. She was young, single and had decided she couldn’t continue with college if she was trying to raise a child.”
There weren’t many families willing to take special needs children, so the Stark family phone rang off the hook. Within eight years, they welcomed six special needs children into their 970sf home in Lilburn, GA. The Stark party of five grew to a family of 11, welcoming, in addition to Melody, Natalie, 26, John, 24, Katie, 19, Jacob, 19, and Amber, who passed at age 18 in 2012. They adopted all the children at birth.
“We stopped because we had run out of room,” said Will. “But you want to take home every child you meet. You want to give them a family.”
The biological daughters, Heather, Jennifer and Jessica, were all very accepting of their parent’s decision to adopt so many kids. Cheryl was cautious to be sure the girls never felt slighted, especially since their new siblings required so much attention, therapy and doctor appointments. As it turned out, two of the three biological daughters are now special education teachers.
Cheryl stayed home to take care of the kids and Will worked. He was a laboratory manager at an environmental firm, a good job that paid well, for 15 years. The company struggled after 9/11 and management instructed Will to fire two people in his department. Will couldn’t bear it.
“One of the people was Iranian and just had a baby, the other was a single mom who had never had a job prior,” said Will. “I knew they wouldn’t be able to find jobs, so I laid myself off, or quit, instead, which saved the company the equivalent of their two salaries.”
Will went on to find jobs in the service industry, which made him very happy, despite not making much money.
“I grew up with a dad who never showed me that things bothered him and we were really poor,” said Will. “My mom and dad never gave me the impression that being poor was bad, it’s just the way it was until it changed. Faith is the biggest part in that. I have a track record in knowing God will provide. That doesn’t mean money flows, because it doesn’t, but I’m content knowing that if I have food and shelter, I’m fine. But you know what? If I don’t have that, I’d still be fine. I think God thinks these special kids are special and the crumbs that fall keep us going. I have confidence that good, bad, broke – it doesn’t mean much. I’ve had lots of money and gave most of it away. I’ve had no money and still gave most of it away. I don’t think the kids have ever suffered from lack of money.”
In 2011, the weekend before Will would start a new job working in the special education department at a school, Will and Cheryl, married 32 years, snuck away for an extremely rare weekend alone to Pigeon Forge. Not long after they arrived, Cheryl said she was tired and laid down. Tragically, she never woke. She had a blood clot in her brain and died from a stroke. It was just a year later when Amber, their daughter who had cerebral palsy, also died unexpectedly.
“I’ve coped fair, I guess,” said Will. “If you had asked in year one, two or three, I wouldn’t have been so good, but I attribute my kids to saving my life. The double portion of grief was so bad and I just assumed never get out of bed. But the kids. You know, there’s just another aspect to grief when you talk about a special needs child. You lost not only that child, but a huge piece of yourself. When Amber passed, a couple folks said ‘well, at least you don’t have to deal with her issues anymore.’ People have no idea how significant the grief is.”
Life carried on and Will did his best to keep up. He stayed home with the kids for three years after Cheryl passed before returning to work. The home booms with noise and action throughout every day. It’s loud, stressful, fun and constant, said Will. Natalie and John don’t sleep a lot, so it’s not unusual for them to be dancing or singing in the wee hours. There’s always a TV going – Barney, Sesame Street and Big Time Rush are the most frequent features. And there’s always the beeping of Jacob’s pulse ox machine, 24 hours a day. Jacob also has a trach and suffocates when it gets clogged two or three times each week. Will is up at all hours to care for Jacob, which attributes to his lack of sleep. It’s a busy, sometimes harrowing life, but one Will and Cheryl happily chose together years ago.
Will married again in 2017 to Deborah, a mother of three. Complicated circumstances keep the couple from living together, but they are happy. Now a transition awaits and Will is left to wonder what life will look like without a house full of kids.
“Cheryl and I always said that we would place the kids in group homes when we turned 60 or so,” said Will. “We wanted to be able to help transition them instead of just dying one day and having them turned over to the state. When Cheryl passed, the kids became an even greater part of my life and I didn’t think about that anymore. But several things have happened over the past couple of years that make me realize I may not be around a long time. If I don’t do something now to help my kids transition, I may miss the opportunity to have input and to provide them the support they need through such a big change.”
The moves could happen tomorrow or months from now. The State won’t give approval on new homes until there’s a firm commitment, timing is complicated, and Will is discerning in the placement of each child.
“I had no idea how much grieving I’d be doing over this,” said Will. “You know, kids go to college, so I tried to make myself believe this is like that, the next step, and it’s natural. But when you have a special child, you live that child. You don’t just take them to soccer and here and there. It’s bigger than that. It’s day in and day out, dressing them, feeding them, transporting them, helping them communicate, it’s everything and that is what has given me purpose and kept me going. Now what?”
Though a move for the kids may be agreed upon any day now, the family will be together for Christmas, regardless. If they’ve already moved, all the kids will be brought back to the Stark home, this year and all the years ahead, to share Christmas with their family.
“It always takes hours to get going Christmas morning because the kids need to be fed and medicated first,” said Will. “Katie dresses up as Santa Claus and distributes all the gifts. We open everything up one by one and everyone ooo’s and ahh’s. We take our time.
Cheryl loved Christmas. She put the tree up on Thanksgiving and usually took it down in April, and only then because the family complained. Nothing was greater than Christmas to her. I didn’t take well to the holidays after she passed, but we’re back to many of our old traditions – except for leaving the tree up till April. The kids love the whole idea of Christmas and that’s because of Cheryl. Life brings so much change, but the love of family and the love of Christmas are infinite.”