Couple With Down Syndrome Displays Eternal Love After Wife Loses Her Husband

In the United States, approximately one in every 700 babies — about 6,000 babies per year — is born with Down syndrome. Having a baby with Down syndrome can very quickly highlight the difficulties that Down syndrome disability can cause.

Kris and Paul Scharoun-DeForge met one another in 1988 and immediately fell for each other. They dated for five years until one day Kris decided that she’d propose to him.

“I whispered in his ear, ‘Would you marry me?’ And he looked up at me with this big beautiful smile and he shook his head ‘Yes!’ And that’s when I knew,” she recalled.

They would go on to be among the first couples in the world with Down syndrome to get married to one another. Their love and desire to marry each other was met with doubt and criticism, something that people with Down syndrome still experience to this day. The resistance they met didn’t stop them and they went to marriage classes and couples counseling and finally tied the knot.

Recently, Paul passed away after many joyful years of marriage. After the funeral ceremony was over, Kris brought a portion of Paul’s ashes to his favorite fishing spot and spread them around. Not all of them, though. She kept half of them and plans to have her own ashes mixed with his one day, showing a physical sign of undying love.

Kris remarked that people with disabilities must be afforded the chance for love, marriage, and intimacy that is so often denied to them.

“People like us need to have a chance. A chance to the man of your dreams, like I did,” she said.

People with disabilities love as deeply, if not deeper than everyone else. Chances for love and romance shouldn’t be met with resistance, but with celebration and support. Because love is love. Kris knows this and so do so many others. She may be going through a difficult time right now, just having lost her husband, but she remains as optimistic as possible. When asked if she would be able to be happy again, her response reflected her love for her partner, but her desire to try at happiness moving forward.