The house that Joy built

Michele Marr

Above the entry door of Gordon and Lorie Watson’s single-story,

ranch-style house is a sign that says, “This is the house that Joy

built.” It is part of what the Watsons came to call The Joy Project,

named after their first granddaughter who died on Sept. 26.

Joy Angelique Smith was born prematurely, weighing barely 3

pounds, on a Sunday morning in May, 26 years ago. Her mother, Elaine,

gave her the name that would prove to fit her perfectly.

Within hours of her birth Joy’s lungs collapsed, depriving her of

oxygen and leaving her with significant brain damage.

She lived with her parents, Elaine Watson and Kevin Smith for the

first three years of her life. But when they divorced neither parent

could provide the 24-hour-a-day care Joy, who couldn’t walk or talk

or feed herself, required.

That is how The Joy Project started.

“You’re not going to put your first grandchild into an

institution,” Gordon Watson said about the decision he and Lorie made

to raise Joy in their home.

“Plus,” Lorie Watson added, “I just loved her. She was Grandma’s

girl.”

The Watsons were optimistic about Joy’s potential so they started

her on a rehabilitative program of brain patterning, which uses

repetitive movement to teach the brain motor patterns.

They converted the living room of the home where they lived at the

time, into a therapy room with the help of several local

congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints.

They enlisted 70 volunteers to help them.

Eight hours a day, seven days a week for a year, volunteers helped

Lorie Watson with Joy’s therapy. And though Joy never gained the

ability to walk or talk, Gordon Watson credits the therapy for

strengthening her lungs so she never had pneumonia, which could have

been deadly.

Joy grew up listening to adults and developed an excellent

vocabulary. Her grandfather, Pop to Joy, also taught her words with a

system of flash cards and yes-or-no questions. Joy could shake her

head for “no” and raise her left arm for “yes.”

Even though she was only 4-foot-5 and weighed only 60 pounds, Joy

was adventuresome and fearless. She started special education classes

at 7, and with her sparkling blue eyes and whole-hearted laughter she

won the hearts of her teachers and therapists.

“She was so pretty everyone responded to her like a flower,”

Gordon Watson said. Joy also had a keen sense of humor and keen ears.

She could hear a joke across a room and she’d laugh and laugh.

She graduated from Edison High School, where one of her therapists

took her to the prom. He danced with Joy, spinning her wheelchair

around the dance floor. Joy, her grandfather said, “liked

good-looking guys.”

According to Lorie, that included Pop.

“She was crazy about him,” she said. “She just squealed when she

heard his voice or heard his car or saw him coming.”

Joy loved clowns and the color lavender. She enjoyed eating out,

especially at Marie Callender’s where she could have her favorite

pasta, garlic bread and peach pie. She was in seventh heaven hanging

out at the mall with her cousins.

“She loved to shop for girl stuff,” said Gordon Watson. She liked

having her hand touched. She liked sports. She rode in her uncle Ed’s

dune buggy and sailed in his Hobby Cat. She loved the water,

especially the warm water of the Cayman Islands or Mexico. For the

Pacific’s cold waters, where she rode her boogie board, she had a

custom wetsuit made for her. She delighted in speed.

“I would roller blade with her in her wheelchair and the faster I

went the happier she was,” her grandmother said. “If you asked her if

she was glad to be alive her little hand would come up so fast.”

Joy cherished hanging out with her family and looked forward to

church. “She’d cry when we’d leave [the church],” said Lorie Watson.

“So one day, I asked, ‘Do you want to stay here?’” Joy’s arm flew up,

“Yes.”

She once got the best grade in her class on a test on the Book of

Mormon; she chose to be baptized when she was 10; and with the help

of her “Pop,” she gave her testimony.

On Sept. 26, Joy died of complications caused by her physical

disabilities that involved her internal organs. At her memorial

service, the petite young woman who could never walk or talk packed

the chapel.

“If somebody had told me 25 years ago that I would [have taken

care of someone with Joy’s needs] I would have laughed. I’d have said

‘No, not me I couldn’t interrupt my life,’” Lorie Watson reflected.

“How many people have the privilege of raising an angel?” Gordon

Watson asked.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].