Woman with Angelman syndrome is just who she is

April Cundy loves people just the way they are.

The 19-year-old lady with Angelman syndrome smiles, laughs and gives hugs no matter what the situation or who the person is.

Her mother, Linda, wants us to love people with disabilities—like April—just the way they are, too.

Linda, a Samaritan Ministries member from Madison, South Dakota, has written She Acts Very Different, a children’s book about April. The book tries to encourage young people, and older people as well, to be accepting of disabled people and realize that God uses them for wonderful purposes.

“The book really is to help kids know that God loves April even amidst her disability and her inability to control her brain, her actions, whatever,” Linda says. “We all need to look at kids and adults who are different as having something to offer. April has a hug and a smile that people just can’t get enough of.”

Hugs and smiles are normal for people who have Angelman syndrome, which is a genetic abnormality that is identified in about one of every 15,000 children and young adults. Named for British physician Harry Angelman, the syndrome includes such symptoms as developmental delays, speech problems, seizures, sleep problems and hyperactivity.

However, people with Angelman syndrome are most recognizable by their smiling, happy demeanor as well as their “easily excitable personality, often with uplifted hand-flapping or waving movements.”

She Acts Very Different tells readers about a young girl who loves to giggle and give hugs, play with water, play hide-and-seek and clap, but who also runs with a unique gait, hasn’t learned how to handle animals well, and strives to get people’s attention.

It concludes,

She knows about Jesus
And how to show love
So watch her and learn
God’s watching from above

But before the Cundys could encourage others to accept April as she is, they had to do so. Randy, Linda and the rest of the Cundy family and friends prayed for healing for a long time after it became obvious that April had difficulties.

However, Linda says, they soon realized that God had His reasons for leaving April the way she is: She was touching lives. One of the staff members at her school kept telling Randy and Linda that April had changed her life. How? the Cundys asked. After all, April pulled on the woman’s hair and threw things at her.

The staffer told them that April accepts her “just the way I am,” no matter how she looked or felt.

Linda finally got it.

“When she told me that, I thought, ‘April’s making a difference just the way she is,” Linda says.

Soon after, Linda started putting words to paper. She had frequently written poetry about family members over the years and thought that one day she would use her degrees in elementary education and learning disabilities to write a children’s book. Her family helped her tweak it and Tate Publishing picked it up.

“When we got done, I thought, ‘Maybe it might help other families look at disabilities as being OK, that God’s OK with this,’” Linda says. “He doesn’t need to change every one of them and bring about healing the way we want.”

Her son, Robbie, had said at the end of a healing service several years ago that maybe God hadn’t healed April yet because He was still working on everybody else.

“He was so totally right,” Linda says. “We don’t love April the way she is yet.”

But, with She Acts Very Different, Linda is still trying and hopes we all do, too.