After my last blog post (my letter to 2020) my mom came to me with a rather concerned look on her face and asked if I was okay as ' that was rather morbid'. After having a good giggle to myself I assured her that I was quite alright and it was just a topic that I felt needed to be discussed.
However, keeping my mom's concern in mind I feel we could all do with a good laugh. After a lot of thought on what to discuss that is both funny and light-hearted, I thought what better than to discuss myself and the embarrassing moments I have had as a result of my disability.
I have to start with the worst one… if you know me then you already know what this is because it still makes me cringe whenever I think of it even though it happened 8 years ago. The story goes a little something like this -
It was the night of my grade 7 Valediction and as you can imagine I was very excited as this was the end of a chapter for me and my friends as we moved into a whole new phase of life. The night got underway and we had moved into the awards section of the school auditorium. They were announcing the winner for the Conscientious Endeavour trophy and to my surprise my name got called out. I made my way up to the stage which included a climb up some stairs. I was so excited that I did not pay attention to the stairs or my own feet and I proceeded to trip. However, as I tripped the Principle tried to catch me and I managed to drag him down with me both ending up on the floor – how embarrassing! We both managed to get up, I collected my trophy and walked across the stage. But wait it gets worse… as I was walking to get my photo taken with the trophy, my entire grade including parents and teachers decided to give me a standing ovation… and what do I do, I BURST INTO TEARS. Whilst it was incredibly special and I will never forget it, it has to be one of my most embarrassing moments to date. All that said I am proud to announce that my Matric Valediction went down incident free!
Thankfully not all of my embarrassing moments are as mortifying. Most of the time they just happen and you have no option but to embrace it, see the funny side and move on. Early last year my parents and I went to Sun City to enjoy some time away before I started my 2nd year of Varsity. One day we decided to go sit by the Royal Bathe's Pool above the Valley of Waves. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that a lot of places are not Cerebral Palsy friendly and in this specific instance there was no rail by the stairs to get into the pool. Looking back on the situation now I could have just jumped in the pool but of course logic always escapes you at the time. My mom and I decided to tackle this challenge by her lending me an arm to step into the pool. Unfortunately, we both underestimated the depth of the step and both very quickly landed in the pool. Whilst to us this was very funny, we did get some very strange glances from the people sitting around the pool who I have no doubt thought we had drunk too many cocktails!
My mom always jokes that she has tried to ‘get rid of me’ on multiple occasions. On one particular day when I was no older than 5 or 6, we were shopping at Fourways Mall. I was standing in a trolley which my mom was pushing and she did not see the concrete pillar in front of us. Before we even realised what had happened, she had rammed the trolley straight into the concrete pillar so hard that it threw me out. But it did not just throw my out, I somehow managed to do a spectacular forward summersault landing perfectly on my feet. Coming from the person who on days loses their balance trying to stand up we are still in awe as to how this happened – Tokyo 2021 here I come!
As you may have gathered by now, I am not very stable on my feet. Just last night I was going to hug my mom, lost my balance and we both ended up in a bundle of limbs on the floor. What I have learned over the years is that the best thing to do is to find the funny side in these embarrassing and tough moments. There was a time where I knew the staff at the Sunninghill Hospital Radiology department by name and my school years were often associated with bruises, grazes and a copious amount of plasters (it got the point where I just kept a large supply in my school bag). But these embarrassing and sometimes painful moments have certainly taught me to be tough (hand made in Africa as my mom always says) and I am happy to report that with some practice I have become somewhat more stable on my feet.
