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How A Group of Teenage Girls Changed My Life, or at least my outlook

July 21, 2013 By admin 2 Comments

Picture Mel Watson from Team GLASA in archery

I don’t know the girl in this photo.  We have never met.  Her name is Mel Watson and she placed first in the archery competition for Team GLASA at the Great Lakes Regional Games.  Yet, a group of girls just like Mel really changed my life a few years ago and made me find a kind of peace in my new world.

It was a sunny day at a beach in Wisconsin, and my then 5 year old daughter was going to water ski with Adaptive Adventures and GLASA.  I was scared to death.  How the heck was my Shea going to ski, when she couldn’t walk.  She had never tried a sport or hobbie like this, and I could not fathom how it was going to turn out.

As they were strapping her scared little body into a ski, which had a seat and out riggers for her safety, I noticed a group of teenage girls coming down the pier.  They were a beautiful set of girls, in walkers, sports wheelchairs and with prosthetic legs.  They came down the pier talking and laughing, and being really nothing more than “typical” teenage girls.  They didn’t even notice me staring at them in total awe as they popped onto the ground next to their chairs or took off their prosthetic legs.  

They were going water skiing.  They were athletes and active and amazing.


Picture

Picture

I got onto the boat that was pulling my daughter and watched as she jumped over waves and laughed and screamed and thrilled at the new thing she could do, and I cried.  This feeling literally came over me thinking about the girls on the pier.  ”It’s going to be OK.”  I thought.  ”It’s all going to be OK, she can grow up to be happy and healthy and have her own life.”  She can go to prom, and go to college and be like any other teenage girl, only way cooler.  She can water ski and snow ski and join a sport and be excellent at it.  She will not always need me the way she does now,and this life is not terrible or insurmountable.   These amazing girls changed my life.    

Girls like Mel Watson who I don’t even know, have made me see nothing but possibility where I once saw obstacle.  They have given me a kind of hope that I could not find anywhere else.  I saw the future in them and it looked pretty darn good !

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Comments

  1. K says

    July 21, 2013 at 4:10 pm

    I love this! As a nineteen-year-old college student with CP, I can honestly reaffirm that attitude and perseverance is the key. There is no doubt in my mind that Shea will be successful. I can do just about everything that other kids my age can do — it just takes more effort. 🙂 And in many ways, I consider my disability to be a gift. It has given me inner strength to compensate for my outer weakness, and it’s something that I can carry with me as proof that I can overcome difficulties and those who doubt me. The lessons that my CP has taught me can be applied to all areas of my life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
    I love your blog; your daughter is amazing, and I can’t wait to see what else she will accomplish!

    Reply
    • Patty says

      July 22, 2013 at 4:10 pm

      K, Your comment brought tears to my eyes. I read it last night and then had to go back to it this morning. You are exactly the kind of person who changes lives for Moms like me. I love how you have found your strength and how you use that to accomplish all those things in your life. Knowing that you are out there and thriving, and going to college, and strong gives me so much strength to raise my daughter.
      Thank you for sharing with me.
      Patty

      Reply

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