Having a disabilty isn't always easy. There's constantly people out there that are unfair to myself and people like me just because of my disability. That's not fair. It's racism, except some people think it's not as bad to call someone "disabled" than to call a black person a "n****". It hurts all the same.
There was a young boy that saw me. We began a conversation since we were both waiting for another boy, John (name changed). He asked me about my hand.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"Nope, not at all." I was glad the boy was asking questions. Good time to learn. He asked a few more.
Later on, we were playing tag. The boy then said:
"We can't play tag, Sara couldn't play,"
"Well, why not?" I asked.
"Yeah, why can't she play tag?" John was confused, he played tag with me all the time.
"Because she's only got one hand."
His mother asked me questions later. I never mind answering questions, but when they repeat the same one over and over - it gets annoying. The lady was the most rude in my opinion because she only repeated her questions because I didn't answer them the way she wanted me to answer them.
I saw the boy and the mom in the grocery store the other day.
"Hi!" I said, and waved. The boy smiled and waved back (he's only around 4 or so, keep in mind).
The mom looks at me blankly. Then says to her son, "Oh yes! That's the girl with one hand, remember her?"
I
was
only
rememberable
to
that
lady
because
i
have
one
hand...
ouch.
Yup. I'll never forget that woman's voice, never forget her kid's voice. Never forget their questions. Never forget the attitude they had tword me.
I can do what you can do, most of the time just in different ways. I got accepted into advanced math, I was told that I could go to advanced English and literature. I swim, I ride my bike, I type faster than almost all of my friends.
But I am different. I get stares from people. People are unfair to me. People don't ask me if I need help, people assume I'm helpless. I'm called names. People stay away from me first time they see me because, well...why not?! I'm different.
There was this one girl I saw at a family reunion. I fell inlove with her, this little girl only a few months old--or two years old--somewhere really young, just enough to speak a few words. She was so cute. I wanted to run up to her and give her a big hug. But she was scared of me. Because of my hand. That night, I went to sleep crying. She reminded me, without meaning to, that I am different, and sometimes it feels like a bad thing.
But sometimes, if I'm in a good mood, it can be fun.
One of my camps for amputees and such were going to Pennsylvania. We were in the airport, going from the luggage place to the airport. We were on this tram thing inside the airport. There were all these people staring at us.
I whispered to Ciara, one of my buddies. (and I whispered to Kristen, another one of my buddies.) We all grinned.
"OH MY GOD-CIARA!!! DID YOU HAVE TO CUT OFF MY HAND!?!?!? I MEAN...GEEZ! WATCH WHERE YOU GO NEXT TIME WITH THAT KNIFE!" I said loud enough for the people to hear.
"Pssh. You cut mine off you hypocrite!" Ciara screamed.
They stopped staring. We got out of the tram laughing histerically. It was great.
Okay, so I was born with one hand. The doctors aren't exactly sure what happened, but this is the story I was told:
I was in my mom's stomach, and somehow I punched my arm into the lining or something of the little what-cha-ma-call-it-area I was in. It got stuck. So the rest of my body kept growing, and my hand stayed like that.
So technically, your hand looked just like mine when you were in your mom's stomach. But that's only true if the doctors theory is true.
It doesn't hurt at all. It's a pain in the butt sometimes because I have to exercise it so it can grow.
I will never grow fingers, but some people do. It's pretty neat even for me to see people's fingers grow-and I'm an amputee!
Ps. I named my arm Fred (lol)
One guy came to my school a while ago. My old school. He was in a wheelchair. He wanted to prove that he could do what everyone else could do. He said, "Hey, I can run too!!" We watched. He ran around, not on his legs, but he would put his arms in front of him, swing, put his hands in front, swing, etc. But it was so quick, he could have beaten me in a race!
But they laughed. And they laughed hard.
"He looks like a gorilla!" one kid screamed.
None of us understood. Even I laughed. Maybe he was trying to be funny, but if he was, that's disgusting to make fun of himself. But we thought it was funny. The way he did his run, funny. That it was different. So we laughed. Only one laugh did I hear besides mine that wasn't a cruel laugh.
And we didn't even know what we were doing. It came automatically.
Last year, my gym teacher was really facinated with my hand. I loved it, I got attention (everyone craves attention) and he would ask questions. Not rude ones, just asking because he was curious. I loved it.
He heard a kid say I sucked a basketball.
One time in gym, we told everyone to wear a bandanna on one of their wrists (he provided the bandannas) and that they can't use that hand that has the bandanna on it. The kids agreed and tried it out.
After a while, everyone missed their shots. They'd put their other hand up, but they'd be like, "Oh...oops" and they'd try again.
After, the teacher said, "Okay...so how was that? Easy? Simple?"
A kid (that was amazing at basketball) said something I'll never forget, "It was terrible! I couldn't make a single basket! I got so frustrated! Sara, I don't know how you do it, you make plenty of baskets...and...wow."
Thank you.
I made over 200 baskets in a free shooting gym period (basketball). The class was only about 30 or some minutes. I've gotten better.
I wished more people asked me questions. My own family doesn't ask me questions. And that worries me. I don't like people wondering about me. I want them to ask.
To answer some of the most popular questions:
Nope, it doesn't hurt.
I can't really explain how it feels. If you close your fist, that's kind of how it is. I have my wrist, so I can bend it and stuff...but...yah.
I can feel, but it's a bone, so if you punch "Fred" it won't hurt me. If you squeeze that hand or something, I can feel it.
Weird fact: when I lay my arm down to sleep, I woke up a little freaked out. When relaxed, my arm doesn't have much weight, so it doesn't lay all the way down. The elbow touched the bed, but the part between my elbow and the wrist was two inches above my bed. :p
