Photographer Dad Makes His Kid With Down Syndrome Fly In A Heartwarming Project

Published 10 years ago

Everybody wants to fly, especially the kids. And ‘Wil Can fly’ is a very special project about a flying boy. Wil (William) is the fifth child in the Lawrence family, and the only one to have Down’s Syndrome. As he crawled around (as babies are wont to do), he used to lift his legs and flap his arms in the air, something that looked like flying to his parents. Alan, an art director and web designer by trade who proclaims to have anxiety when he doesn’t have a camera with him, decided to make pictures of Wil flying. Or make composite pictures where he’s holding his son aloft, and then edit himself out. ‘Wil Can Fly’ made it to his blog and his Instagram, and now it’s seeking success as a Kickstarter calendar project.

“While looking into his eyes everything started to go into a dream state <…>My emotions of joy paused as everything around me seemed to slow down. The nurse may of been talking to me but I wasn’t listening.” Alan recounted on his blog. “I could immediately tell from the almond shape of Wil’s eyes that he had Down Syndrome.”. As any modern parent, they went online almost immediately. And while they found a lot of information pertaining to the syndrome, there was precious little in positivity. Wanting to improve the situation, they are aiming to travel through five American states, take pictures and make four yearly calendars about their airborne son.

It seems that Wil has a long way to fly.

More info: thatdadblog.com | Kickstarter | Facebook | Instagram (h/t: liftbump)

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