The Dawn of a positive attitude on life

We’ve all been around those people who, no matter what is going on, can always find a way to turn something positive into a negative.  Then, there are those special people who, no matter what is going wrong, can take any situation and turn it into a positive.  Dawn Lathem is most certainly one of those people who always sees the positive in all situations.

Every opportunity that AHIF identified over the past six months Dawn was willing to give it a try!  She was a guest drawer in the Amy vs Scott Pictionary Challenge!  She was a contestant in our first ever Lip Sync Challenge, where she cleverly sang No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak.”  She took part in the 13-week Music Therapy Clinical led by a UA Music Therapy student.  She also took part in the UAB We Can Do It Program.  The UAB students who worked with Dawn enjoyed her so much that, when they learned her birthday was coming up, bought her some thera-bands and asked us to deliver them to Dawn to use for her exercises!

Every Tuesday and Thursday for most of 2020, Dawn would join our Zoom Support Group meetings and bring an instant source of encouragement and positivity to any and every meeting. 
She took time to get to know each attendee, so much so that she could recognize when they didn’t seem to be themselves and would ask them what was wrong, and always had a positive word of encouragement to offer.

Over the past months, we have had some awesome support groups, and some that went off the rails a little bit.  No matter what was going on, and how out of control things got...you could always count on Dawn, with that signature smile and compassionate voice…to echo again her encouraging line…It’s All Good!  And, when Dawn is around, she is right.  It is all good.