Fighting Chance blog 8

Perfection of an unprovoked reality

I’m writing this article in response to a report that I saw on Channel 7’s Sunday Night, a story entitled “A father’s love”.

This report chronicles the story of a boy named Jackson Keleher who was born with Cerebral Palsy as a result of oxygen deprivation. Doctors said, quite adamantly, that Jackson would never ever walk and would be unable to lead a ‘normal’ life. As hard as this is for any first-time parent to hear, little did they know the power of parental love can create wonders and perform miracles.

Jackson’s parents David and Carrie separated not long after his birth and David became Jackson’s sole and primary carer. David was adamant that Jackson would walk and communicate, through means of gruelling physical therapy treatments and constant speech pathology sessions, an emotionally exhausting venture for both David and Jackson. Whilst I admire David’s bravery as well as his fierce fatherly support, the thing that got me talking most was Carrie’s response as to how she felt about Jackson having CP. Carrie is significantly less involved in Jackson’s day to day routine, although she says she loves him and is happy and proud to be his mum she finds the ‘CP part’ particularly hard for her to adjust to and accept, to the point where she referred to it as “repulsive”.

(I welcome you to watch the report and formulate your own opinion on 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBcKVASGdBs ).

While Carrie’s comments did initially make me cringe, as I was researching this story thoroughly and reflecting on her remarks, I realised that she has valid concerns and such denial and an inability to accept stems from enormous guilt and grief.

For myself I’ll always remain grateful for the life that I have now, if there was a safe cure for CP, would I take it? And my answer to that would be “yes” …….and “no”. “Yes” because I wanted to be a school teacher but I’ve struggled with people’s perception of me. And “no” because I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet the amazing people that I have.

Given that, I’d like to pose some questions to you, reflecting on unfortunate circumstances; if you could go back in time and change anything at all in your life, what would it be? And If you had a chance to live your life without unwanted and/or unnecessary challenge(s), would you and why?

Greg Braden once said and I share his sentiments;
“Adversity is an opportunity for us to step into our mastery.”