‘That’s Thanksgiving’

More blessed to give than to receive 

THIS STORY MAKES ME REGRET not having a better gift of expression, and more space, for the telling. 

At its heart is pediatric nurse practitioner Judy Harrison, 78, who, in addition to raising two sons of her own, has adopted seven medically fragile children and fostered more than 100 youngsters, most with special needs, from across Kentucky. 

“It was a job that I knew, without a doubt, God had put me here to do,” says Harrison, now a nurse with Easter Seals of the Bluegrass adult day help. 

A native of Madison County who had recently divorced, she moved to Lexington in 1988 to better care for medically fragile children after having spent several years fostering newborns awaiting adoption. 

“I got attached to all of them, but getting to hand them over to parents who had waited 10 years was probably some of the best joy I’ve ever had.” 

One of her birth sons died of Lou Gehrig’s disease, and the other, who has four adopted children, is a rapid response nurse at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. Four of Harrison’s medically fragile adopted children had terminal illnesses and weren’t expected to live more than one year, but two lived into their 20s, and the others into their teens. 

Another was Kristina, who was born with a rare condition known as Treacher Collins syndrome. Among other defects, she had no airway, no ears, unformed mandibles and cheekbones, and squared eyes. Her family knew they could not properly care for her, so she remained at a Louisville hospital until Harrison brought her home at 3 weeks old, adopted her and loved her the rest of her life. 

By age 10, after she had already undergone many corrective surgeries, the tracheotomy Kristina had worn all her life was removed and replaced with a surgically constructed airway. And despite continued warnings that the airway might one day close, Kristina chose to never again wear a tracheotomy. 

This is where I must skip ahead and leave you to read many unwritten words between the lines. 

When Kristina died in her sleep one week before her 40th birthday in the summer of 2023, she was a much-loved, award-winning nurse at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. She’d earned a nursing degree from UK and was then in the pediatric doctoral program. In her journal, she left loving tributes to Dan Stewart, the neonatal surgeon who had saved her life as a baby, and to Judy Harrison, of whom she wrote: 

“…The state then decided to entrust my life to a white woman in a country town who cares for children no one else wanted… Even when my body fought against her efforts, she persevered and maintained the life of a little black girl that many others at this point had deemed… actually not worthy and/or able to be born to stand out.” She closed with, “The God I serve is capable of ANYTHING!” 

At Kristina’s crowded memorial service, a woman she’d never seen came to thank Judy Harrison for taking good care of Kristina—her daughter. 

“It was the best present I’ve ever had,” Harrison told me. “That’s Thanksgiving.”