A SEVERELY disabled son and his adoring mother have created an extraordinary moment on an extraordinary day at Dubbo College Senior Campus.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The tug of real love had Denise Primmer on her feet as her almost 19-year-old son Jordan was helped on to the stage at the farewell assembly for Year 12 students at the campus hall yesterday.
By the time campus principal Richard Skinner had moved across the stage to shake the teenager’s hand, his mother was nearby and snapping photographs of an occasion the Primmer family has never taken for granted.
“Go away mum,” a smiling Jordan said, causing the packed hall to erupt in cheers and applause.
As Jordan descended the stage stairs and fell into his mother’s arms, family, friends and members of the campus community openly cried.
A wheelchair ride out of the building was briefly halted at the door by 20-year-old Joshua Primmer, Jordan’s big brother.
“I love you,” Joshua told Jordan, after kissing him on the cheek.
Outside the hall, where the ceremony was still underway, the extended Primmer family and supporters could not contain overwhelming joy and excitement.
They repeatedly hugged each other, along with the young man who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy after being stricken by an infection as a newborn.
The Daily Liberal was honoured to be on hand for Jordan’s first day at big school in 1999.
An invitation to attend his final day was warmly received and accepted.
Bryan and Denise Primmer yesterday expressed gratitude to Dubbo and District Pre-School, Orana Heights Public School, and both the Delroy and Senior campuses of Dubbo College for taking great care of their son.
But family and friends were emphatic that they and Joshua were deserving of much praise for unconditional love and commitment to Jordan.
“They told us he would never walk or talk and just be a vegetable in a wheelchair, and we should more or less put him in an institution,” Mrs Primmer said.
“But you never give up hope.”
The Primmers, who have sat beside Jordan’s hospital bed often, said they treated him like a “normal child”.
“But we don’t plan too much because you don’t know what’s around the corner,” Mrs Primmer said.
It’s a philosophy that made yesterday even sweeter, as did a speech from senior campus graduate and Jordan’s cousin Khyarne Biles, who is now studying medicine because of him.
The Primmers were headed to Dubbo RSL Memorial Club last night so Jordan could celebrate his achievement with a game or two of pool, which he calls “pushball”.
Jordan’s immediate future has been mapped, with family still in the picture.
“He’ll go to Break Thru People Solutions and his brother works there as well, which is good,” Mrs Primmer said.
Jordan was among 212 Year 12 students farewelled by a crowd of more than 1200 people yesterday.
