‘Disabled’? ‘Special’? How about ‘ human’?

A group of young adults met at a local fire station on a recent Sunday to make a meal for their families. There was nothing particularly special about the menu — two varieties of chili, cornbread, fruit and a large cake — or the preparation of the meal — 14 teenagers and 20somethings peeling sweet potatoes, chopping peppers and onions, opening cans of black beans and stirring up cornbread.

And from my viewpoint, there was nothing “special” about the cooks, either. Oh, they all have 47 chromosomes instead of the standard-issue 46, but that just makes them slightly “different,” not “special.”

As Arby’s has told us, “Different is good!”

These cooks — all members of the 3-21 Club of the Down Syndrome Aim High Resource Center at the Center for Disability Services — don’t have “special” needs. They have the same needs everyone else has: love, community, friendship, an appropriate education, a meaningful vocation. They’re not “disabled”; they’re “differently abled.”

My 25-year-old daughter, one of Sunday’s cooks, isn’t disanything, except when she’s disgusted with me for telling her it’s time to get up in the morning. Her extra 21st chromosome has altered the course of my life in various ways, but I prefer to think of her as “chromosomally enhanced” rather than “special,” “disabled” or “delayed.”

Society uses the term “special needs” as a euphemism for the “R word,” which thankfully has fallen into disuse and has even been removed from the name of a New York state agency. For instance, your grandmother isn’t referred to as having “special needs” because she needs a walker to get around, or because she needs cataract surgery. No, only those people with cognitive issues — what that state agency now calls “developmental disabilities” — are referred to as having “special needs.”

Many people with Down syndrome have had heart problems caused by that extra chromosome. About 1 percent have had a type of leukemia associated with that extra chip of genetic material. Medical challenges aren’t “special”; they’re pretty common in any group of people.

World Down Syndrome Day is celebrated every year on March 21. The twenty-first day of the third month was chosen to signify the triplication of the twenty-first chromosome, which defines Down syndrome.

That Sunday was a day of joy at being together, whether we have 46 chromosomes or 47, and of gratitude for the opportunities available to people with Down syndrome.

Best chili and cornbread I ever had.