By Jenny Pope
Buckner International
When Ellinor Nixon sees a clean room, she sees more than dust-free floors and neatly made beds. She sees inside a child’s mind.
“If a child’s bedroom is all jumbled up and messy, it looks like their mind,” she said. “But when I see a child cleaning, organizing their rooms, they’re being healed. They’re going through the healing process.”
And Nixon would know. After serving as a foster parent for children with special needs and mental handicaps for more than 17 years in Beaumont, Nixon has developed a certain knack for understanding children without ever saying a word.
“I observe them and take my time to get to know each child,” she said. “It’s my God-given talent – it’s my ministry. I can sense things. And I’ve learned a lot over the years. It’s not an easy job to change a whole person.”
But Ellinor is the best person to try, said Mary Budke. She and her husband Henry placed their son Mason, now 16, in the state’s hands when they had reached their limit in caring for his severe autism.
At 12 years old, Mason was unable to care for himself at all. He wasn’t potty trained and he couldn’t speak. But after being placed with Nixon, Mason’s “other mom,” he was toilet trained and communicating better than ever before.
“We are so happy that he is here with Ellinor,” Mary said. “We couldn’t be more blessed. She has a strong spirit and special skills. She was able to do what we couldn’t do in 12 years in just two weeks.”
Though Mason still lacks verbal communication skills, often communicating with signs and “looks,” Nixon can understand every word he says. And he always obeys her requests.
“For years people had been forcing him to do things without asking his opinion, without talking to him like a normal person. So one day, I just told him, ‘Mason, take your medicine.’ And he took it. He understood. Nobody had ever talked to him like that before.”
The Budkes, who live in Silbee, Texas, frequently visit their son and relish in his changes and growth under Ellinor’s roof.
“We had a really rough time with Mason,” his father Henry said. “There’s some guilt involved anytime you can’t care for your child. But when I go to sleep at night, I know that he’s safe. And more than that, I know that he’s loved.”
Nixon treats the Budkes as part of her family, she said. “Any decision I make working with him, they support it. It’s so cool that we can interact the way we do. We have a spiritual connection.”
Nixon works part time as a specialist with the Mental Health Mental Retardation (MHMR) community, training members for job readiness. Her experience working with the mentally handicapped catapulted her into fostering 17 years ago when a certain child needed a home.
Since then Nixon has cared for “40-50 children,” she said, with as many as 10-12 living with her at one time. “All special needs – most with mental health issues. I usually take the ones nobody else wants.”
Today Nixon cares for Mason and two others – Ruby, 16, and Natasha, 22 – in her two-story bayou home.
“Ruby came to me with some serious mental health issues,” Nixon said. “She was shy and withdrawn – she even had a hard time answering the telephone. It seemed like everyone else had given up on her.”
Now, as Ruby sorts through her CD albums and finishes folding her laundry, she seems like any typical teenage girl. She’s an honor student at Central High School and sings solos in the church choir.
“She’s very competitive and works hard at school. She doesn’t want to be left behind,” Nixon said.
Ruby takes some regular classes, along with special education classes. And Nixon has high hopes for her future.
“Ruby’s gonna go to college,” she said.
Twenty-two-year-old Natasha has Down ’s syndrome. Nixon has been caring for her for the last four years. This year, Natasha will graduate high school and attend the senior prom. She attends a high level life skills program and receives two hours of special training each day with Gayle Phillips, Nixon’s daughter.
Phillips also works full-time with MHMR community and helps Natasha learn necessary life skills, such as calling 911 in emergencies, identifying her name on medications and knowing how to react in case of a fire.
“I admire my mom,” Phillips said. “She’s taught me to be consistent and to never give up on a child. I admire that she’s so strong and the way she loves children. She just likes helping people, trying to turn them around. It’s her gift. It’s just her.”
Nixon is currently working towards an appeal to the state to keep Natasha in her home, even though she has passed the legal age limit for foster care at 22. When the law passes, it will set a precedent for future foster families to keep special needs children under their roof as long as necessary for a child to function in the world.
This means Natasha, the girl who loves to hug, can remain safe and loved in Nixon’s family for as long as she needs.
“I’m committed to help her,” Nixon said.
Nixon has received several awards for her work with children, including the Outreach Foster Parent of the Year award from Buckner Children and Family Services in Southeast Texas and the Person of the Week award from ABC-affiliate KBMT Channel 12 in Beaumont.
“Sometimes it feels like I’m not that person,” she said about receiving so many awards. “I don’t take it lightly, but it doesn’t change my spirit. I’m still the same person. The awards are just another one of God’s blessings.”
People might confuse a woman as giving, as hopeful, as Nixon with someone they could never be – someone they could never understand. But really, she’s quite simple. She just follows God’s lead.
“God is in the midst of this,” she continued. “In all these years, I’ve never had to take a nerve pill. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. If that’s not enough proof, I don’t know what is!” she laughed.
“This is my gift and I enjoy it. It’s not a job. If it gets to be a job, I won’t do it anymore. But it keeps me going, keeps me motivated. I couldn’t do any of it without God.”
More than Words
