Incapable... Helpless... Incompetent... Burden to Society... Feeble... Weak... Hindrance... Hamper... Detriment... Embarrassment...Impaired... Restricted... Cripple... Retard... Gimp... Invalid. Words many use to describe the disabled. Webster's dictionary classifies the disabled as "the deprivation or want of ability, the absence of competen, physical, intellectual, or moral power." However, lets take the word at its face value. It's a compound word made from dis, un or not, and able. So basically when we call someone disabled we are literally not able or incapable, that the person can't. So if they can't why are there so many celebrities with disabilities that can?! For these celebrities their ONLY Disability was society. For these celebrities it wasn’t can’t, but COULD and Did!
One such man is Jerry Traylor. Mr. Traylor was born with cerebral palsy. He spent the first 14 years of his life undergoing 14 different surgeries. By age 6, he had lain in a hospital bed for 11 months. Moreover, during this time, he 240 miles away from his home and family in Nebraska. I know few people who would’ve been able to endure all that, and still maintain such a spirit of perseverance! Currently, Mr. Traylor is like any other person you would meet. He has a beautiful little girl, graduated from Western State Colorado with a degree in Business Administration. (So I guess you could say your average guy), except for the fact he’s the only average guy to have jogged across America, all 3, 528 mi on crutches! He started in San Fransisco in February and only seven months later he arrived in NYC. He had jogged 15 miles a day, and for the duration of his jog, he wore out three pairs of crutches and two dozen pairs of shoes! He can run a mile in 9 minutes 29 seconds! He competed in the 14, 110 foot long “Pike’s Peek Cross-country” marathon three times! He went on to sky dive from a height of 12, 500 feet. This is quite a feat for someone with cerebral palsy because for those that have it, it makes physical movement a daily struggle.
Cerebral Palsy or CP is a disorder caused by damage to the brain. It’s not inherited, it’s not contagious, and it’s not progressive. Only 8,000 babies are born with it annually. The area of the brain it affects is what controls posture and movement, so typically they will either have spacticity, sudden jerky movements, or little if any movement at all. However, much of this can be overcome through physical therapy and perseverance.
Perseverance is something we all need, but perhaps James Earl Jones is the one with the most. Picture this for a moment, LLLLuuukkkee I aaamm yyouuurr faaathher, not quite the same is it. However, without perseverance this famous phrase from Star Wars may never have been. The man who said this phrase, James Earl Jones, has struggled to overcome stuttering. He has one of the most recognizable voices in the world, chances are you know him by the voice of Mufassa, in the Lion King, or CNN, or his movies. He holds honorary doctorates from Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. Just think, he is most famous for his voice and has struggled to even be able to use it. He had such a significant stutter he flat out refused to speak for 8 years, and was considered mute from the ages of 6-14. It wasn’t until a high school teacher forced him to read poetry daily to the class, that he began to speak again.
Stuttering is all too common for 3 million Americans have it. It is a communication in which the flow of speech is broken my repitions. It can be helped through speech therapy. However, the best thing YOU can do is to maintain eye contact and don’t finish words or sentences, have patience which is something these next group of men, ma have been lacking.
Einstein, Da Vinci, Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell were some of the greatest minds in history; they all also share the disorder of dyslexia. Einstein was said by his teachers to have been “mentally slow.” He didn’t speak until age 3. Da Vinci an inventor wrote from right to left. Alexander Graham Bell had trouble with the alphabet. While Edison was said by his teachers to be “addled, poor mathematically, and dull” & by his father “stupid and a dunce.”
Dyslexia is caused by processing information in a different area of the brain than most, thus it makes accuracy in word recognition difficult, which in turn makes reading and spelling a challenge. You simply have to change your point of view, very much like Aimmee Mullins.
Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder. Behold this beauty, Aimmee Mullins. She is a model who made her debut in 1999 in Alexander McQueen’s Spring Show, that same year she was named one of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People. However, chances are, you were so in awe of her beauty, you missed the fact she has prosthetic legs. On top of being a supermodel, she is a world-class athlete. She holds world records in the 100 meter, 200 meter dash, and the Long Jump with 3.5 feet. She is an amazing scholar. At the age of 23 she was appointed to the foreign affairs internship program at the Pentagon, her Colin Powell. She was the youngest to have Security Clearance at the Pentagon. Disabled or Incapable? I think NOT.
According to Dictionary.com, a mirror is “something that faithfully reflects or gives a true sense of something else; something worthy of imitation.” So next time you find yourself fretting over all your flaws, pay No heed because YOU are worthy of something of imitation. For after all, today we learn that the common thread between all the above mentioned celebrities is that they are all stars, but so are the other 94 million people with “disabilities,” and so are all of you because you can’t have disability without ABILITY! There is no “dis” only ABLE. So once everyone realizes the abilities in those with seemly inabilities the possibilities in our world will become as endless as a rainbow or a galaxy of stars!
