Get Off Your Knees: A Story of Faith, Courage, and Determination

Learning How to Prioritize

42 4 Learning How to Prioritize My mom and dad treated me as any parent would a normal, healthy young boy. I received no preferential treatment; I was expected to perform my chores, do my homework, and go to bed when they asked. At the same time, I was encouraged to play ball with the other neighborhood kids and do what boys do, which is raise havoc and have fun. It was never, “You can’t do it because you’re disabled.” They allowed me to be whatever I wanted to be; they were not overly protective, nor did they put limitations on me because I was different. This point would be extremely important as I became an adult, because by not shielding me from the rest of the world, they were preparing me for the difficult challenges that lay ahead. I was forced to find solutions to problems—such as writing with a pencil, brushing my teeth, throwing a baseball, walking up and down stairs—that most children don’t think twice about. If my parents did all of those things for me, I’m not sure where I’d be today. I adapted to the world as best I could. It was those instances when the world had to adapt to me—such as Learning How to Prioritize | 43 when the assistant principal or nurse at school would help me dress and undress to use the bathroom—that I felt “disabled .” Nothing caused me more discomfort and humility, however, than having to wear artificial arms and legs. From the time I was six months old until I was a teenager, my fatherandIwouldmakethetwice-yearlydrivefromGreene, New York, to East Orange, New Jersey, so I could get fitted for my prosthetics. Despite my physical disability, I grew about as fast as most boys, so I needed new arms and legs about as often as I needed new shoes or jeans. This journey was no trip to the department store, however. The doctor would make a cast of my arm or leg, reproduce it, and then attach the artificial part to the end of it. The big issue for me was when the original mold, made of plaster of paris, hardened and they had to remove it. The doctor would break the 9. At the beach in North Bay, Ontario. I was four. 44 | Get Off Your Knees cast, but not before he used a circular saw to cut through a good portion of it. It frightened me more than any needle or boogeyman ever could. I hated the process, and those trips definitely put a strain on my parents’ relationship. My mom did not want to see the emotional stress. It was hard on me and would have been worse for her. At the time, with so many disabled veterans coming back from Vietnam, it was a common occurrence to get fitted for artificial limbs. I was an amputee just as they were, except I was born with my condition. My parents didn’t give it a second thought, and as much as I preferred tossing the prosthetics to the neighborhood dogs, I was 10. Here, I’m using my artificial arms to hold a drumstick at my maternal grandparents’ home in LaFayette. Learning How to Prioritize | 45 required to wear them to school. (The only exceptions were during gym and the writing portions of class, when I was allowed to remove the arms.) I sported these artificial limbs until the seventh grade before I was finally able to convince my parents and the prep school I attended at the time that I was better off without them. My junior high school and later my senior year high school, the Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire, was unable to move everything to one floor to accommodate me—the library was upstairs and the cafeteria downstairs from the main floor, and they had no elevators. I was more mobile going up and down the stairs without my prosthetics and, thus, less likely to fall and get hurt. I resented my fake limbs, because besides being very cumbersome and difficult to use, they stopped me from feeling like I was like the other kids. The great irony is that you put artificial arms and legs on because you want to be closer to what other kids—or adults—look like. You want to be their height. The reality was just the...