From Holly Riddle

Dearest Rud and Ann,

My heart breaks for you, the girls, and all the people who so loved and cared about Jay. My heart breaks, too, for the many of us who grew up feeling as if we were also somehow part of the Turnbull family. Truly, I believe we were and are yet, for a generation of families and professionals alike have become, through Jay, members of a "family of practice," committed to envisioning a future where others live, as Jay did, "the enviable life" upon which you have staked, as upon the highest hill top, your lives and careers.

I can't begin to recount all the stories that gave me the sense that we were growing up, as a field along side you, Jay and the girls: our "First Family." I remember the stories about J.T. going to camp in Chapel Hill. I remember Amy and Kate, somewhere along the way, beaming middle schoolers, telling a roomful of grown-ups what it meant to see their brother hanging out at school (and quipping that they could hardly see him as odd when their daddy wore bow ties!). What trail blazers all the Turnbulls were! Those stories--right from the start--inspired us and showed us the way to breath life -- real lives -- full of the constitutional principles, "policy on the books," and "policy on the street." Those stories were replete, Rud and Ann, with more, with a "policy of the heart," arising from the very core of our lives together as friends, family and community.

Then, there was that proliferation of writing and research, all of it brought to life in Jay... J.T. getting on the bus... Jay's first date... J.T. in the frat house (Where have I put my Jayhawks hat?)... Jay making music (songs to brush teeth by?!?) ... J.T. opening his home to friends (Darn it, I never mastered the hand shake.) Jay always gave back so much more than he ever asked of us. Family-centered practice, participatory research, full citizenship, mutual reciprocity, family quality of life (so beautifully articulated, Ann, as only a mother could!), family support, the core concepts of disability policy: all melded from your lives together with Jay, Kate and Amy, translated expertly, eloquently... policy emulating life, elevating our understanding. And still more memories... Your years on the Hill, Rud, and the statutory base you helped give us, for Jay and all people with I/DD. At each stage of Jay's life, we knew it could happen for others, since you rarely gave us the family tales without the policy tools and the research, to boot. Oh, what gifts Jay gave you and you gave us, your extended "family of practice." Veritably, those gifts transformed us and, over Jay's lifetime, took us into the Turnbull clan.

You will, dear Rud and Ann, go on even now, even in this time of sorrow. Jay Turnbull is wonderfully, fully alive in our collective memories. He lives through his sisters, his nieces and nephews, through the Beach Center and through its next-generation progeny. He lives in the work we do every day, work he so inspired. Jay allowed you to become our "First Family." His work and your own, so inextricably intertwined, is here with us, just as it also lies ahead, in each of our futures, and in the future of the field itself. Thank you, Rud and Ann, for giving us Jay. Not only is he your North Star, but also always and forever ours.

With deepest sympathies and deepest gratitude,

Holly Riddle
NC Council on Developmental Disabilities