Simply Children

Abstract

I was born 27th of June 1986. Three weeks later my parents took me home from the hospital, completely clueless about what the future would hold for us, I am their first child. With only dramatic and terrifying information from the doctors about my ‘severe’ impairment and that my life was a ticking time bomb, my parents were supposed to be confident and help themselves in their new role as parents of a disabled (said to be dying) little girl. Even though all this was terrifying for them, and my family as a whole, they soon decided that my impairment was not going to control our lives. They tried to push away the constant reminder from health professionals that my life wouldn’t be very long; I wasn’t sick and didn’t seem to be interested in anything else other than being a part of this world. They wanted me to be able to live life to the fullest and experience the same things as my peers would. They were soon eager not to over-protect me; they let other people babysit me, took me overseas, with them to work in their flower shop and to anywhere they would have taken me if I hadn’t been physically impaired.