Courage In The Face Of Adversity

Its all about courage.....
 

     Being a somewhat mature critter I tend to record most of what is on television after nine o'clock for fear of nodding off and missing the end of programmes, so I had recorded Me and My...Body and I can't tell you how glad I am that I did.

     The programme focusses on a variety of people with a range of physical differences, a boy born with no legs, a lady who's mother took thalidomide and several others were featured, all accidental victims of fate, but there wasn't a single victim among them.  

 

     I remember the thalidomide scandal, it was a drug that was widely prescribed for pregnant women going through morning sickness, unfortunately the side effects were devastating and babies were born with all manner of deformities that devastated families and tore them apart because of the guilt that was directed at them.    I met one such baby, a tiny scrap of humanity who had no arms, just the semblance of tiny hands in its shoulders and flippers for feet.   The child had eyes as deep as the ocean and over the years I have often wondered how that baby fared.  

 

     The people in the programme spoke candidly about their situations telling of the accidents and conditions that shunted them beyond the boundary of being able bodied into the nether world of survivors.    There is no tag on our toe saying that we will have three score and ten wonderful and marvellous years of good and healthy life.   As a person without faith I believe that we get what we get and must do our best to make the best of this wonderful thing called life.

 

     Since I became a member of the Instagram community I have come across people who are also managing situations that are beyond difficult, one runs to assuage the grief of loss, another is supporting a sick child....we are all walking wounded in some way or other and this modern world is an unfriendly place for those who are in any way different.

 

     If one sprains one's ankle, once healed it is forgotten whereas if someone has had a nervous breakdown, for example, it is remembered.   'You know her, she had a nervous breakdown' may well be whispered as a qualifying factor that shapes our opinion of that person.    We love to attach labels to others that render them inferior or different in relation to our sense of ourselves.  

 

    I don't know how any of the people in the programme feel, I don't know anything other than how I feel and being inadvertently different is something so much bigger than choosing to ink one's body or die my hair blue as have done.   I remember the crushing weight of my 'difference' when I was a schoolgirl moving up from the infants into the juniors.   My teacher stood me up in front of the class and announced that as I didn't have a father I was entitled to free school meals and a piece of me died that day, I was mortified.   As a child I didn't want that sort of attention and whispering, I had kept silent about my status because in my family it was all smoke and mirrors, there were herds of elephants in every room and by the time that I moved up into junior school my mother had two husbands and divorces behind her which was pretty scandalous in those days, after all divorce was rare and the only other children without fathers were ones whose dads had died in the war.    

 

     When I got home I was clearly confused and distressed, a secret had come out and now I was marked by it.  My mother was incensed and went up to the school the next day and told them to give my free meals to a child with two parents who couldn't afford to pay, but the damage was done and I cowered, shrouded in my difference and it felt awful, but time does heal wounds and my difference was temporary and soon forgotten when someone threw up or had an accident.  But I do remember the kids coming to the gate to see my mother because for them the notion of a divorcee was someone like Jayne Mansfield driving a Cadillac and there was Crimplene woman waiting by the gate, no pink caddy or film star looks and the response was 'is that her?'

 

     Difference comes in many guises, we are all essentially different, some by choice or fate, others by accident or illness and it clearly takes enormous courage for the people in the programme to get up each day and cope, yet at the end of the programme we learned that each of them has embraced their situation with such grace and fortitude.   Their difference has enhanced them, it didn't kill them, it made them stronger.   

 

     Some people do have it easy and seem to lead a charmed lives in comparison with others whose problems seem to be unrelenting..   Others seem to invite complications into their lives by forgetting too much and repeating past mistakes.  Whatever your demons are my dears, each of you is struggling with something that makes you feel lesser or different in some way.    Life is full of 'isms', 'ists' and 'phobes'  we judge too quickly, assume too much and disregard the feelings of others too eagerly in this me-me world that we now inhabit.    Be it running through your anxiety or eating your sadness it is all about difference and how small we feel when we suddenly shrink to the size we were when we experienced our first humiliation.

 

     If you want to learn about courage go to YouTube and look up Nick Vujicic, I found him some years ago and he remains my hero, a man of such bravery and humour, he is a testament to ....courage in the face of adversity.