What Jill's House Taught Me About the Gift of Rest

There's a kind of tired that only parents of medically fragile children understand. It's not the tired that sleep fixes. It's the tired that lives in your bones, the kind that comes from years of hospital hallways, middle-of-the-night monitor alarms, and holding your breath every time the phone rings during work hours. I know that tired intimately, and it's why I want to tell you about a place in McLean, Virginia called Jill's House.

My daughter Chloe was born in April 1996 with Cerebral Palsy. From the day she arrived, her health was a series of battles. We spent more time in and out of hospitals than I can count, learning to read monitors, memorizing medication schedules, and becoming fluent in a language of specialists and therapies that no parent expects to need. Chloe passed away when she was five years old (June 17, 2001). Those five years were some of the hardest and most beautiful of my life, and I would not trade a single day of being her mom.

But here's something I don't talk about enough. During those years, my husband and I used respite care, and it saved us. Not just as parents, but as a couple, and as people. Caring for a medically complex child is a full-body, full-heart, full-time job. There is no clocking out. Respite gave us a few hours here and there to remember who we were outside of the hospital rooms and the caregiving. It let us show up for Chloe as better, steadier, more present parents because we weren't running on empty every single day. That's not a luxury. That's survival, and it's also love.

This is why Jill's House matters so much to me, even though Chloe was gone before it opened its doors in 2010. Jill's House began the same way our story did, with a family loving a child through profound challenges and realizing they couldn't do it alone. Lon and Brenda Solomon, who led McLean Bible Church, had a daughter named Jill with a severe seizure disorder. When members of their congregation stepped in to give them a break, Lon said something that has stuck with families ever since. He said laughter came back into their home. That single sentence became the seed for what Jill's House is today, a respite home in McLean that serves children and young adults with intellectual disabilities and gives their families the chance to breathe.

What they've built is remarkable. Jill's House offers overnight weekend stays, weeknight programs, and day camps for kids ages six through seventeen, along with newer programs for young adults. Children get their own version of a slumber party, complete with friends, activities, and a place where they are fully seen and celebrated for who they are. Meanwhile, their parents get something just as vital. They get to sleep. They get a date night. They get a weekend where the constant hum of worry quiets down, even just a little.

I recently read a note from a mother whose son has been going to Jill's House for years and was one of the first young adults to join their new overnight weekend program. She wrote that she always tells herself the weekend is for her son, that he'll spend time with friends and have fun. And then, usually by Saturday, she realizes the weekend is for her too. She gets to rest- body, mind, and soul. She said the worry probably never fully goes away, but for one weekend, it takes a little break. She ended her note with a sentence that says everything. She wrote, "That break makes me better."

That is exactly it. Respite isn't selfish. It isn't giving up. It's what allows you to keep going with a full heart instead of an empty one. Parents can only truly rest knowing their child isn't just being watched, but is somewhere they genuinely want to be, laughing, trying new things, and belonging completely. That's what makes the rest real, and that's what Jill's House in McLean has built for hundreds of families across Northern Virginia.

If you know a family raising a child with a disability, or if you're one yourself, know that asking for help and taking a break isn't a failure. It's one of the most loving things you can do, for your child and for yourself. Jill's House understood that from the very beginning, and every family they've served since has been better for it. I know ours would have been.