I've always loved writing—observing people, telling their stories. But when the main subject is myself, everything gets harder. It's almost impossible to capture a person's personality and character on a couple of typed pages. Especially when you're writing to someone you've never met. So I'll pretend I'm writing to pen pals, people I know only through letters.
I was born with a severe disability, and it has shaped everything—my life, my family's life, all of it. My parents had to care for a child who would always be entirely dependent on them. You can imagine the anguish and frustration they felt. Yet despite everything seeming hopeless, they believed in me. They gave me the chance to study, to earn a degree, to live a life much like my peers. I am deeply grateful to them for that.
I was fortunate enough to escape the pity and condescension that so many disabled people face.
My interests go beyond schooling. I love everything that lets me live with others and for others. Despite my serious limitations, I've managed to become active in my parish—as a catechist, in my neighborhood. I'm always looking for meaningful work I can do, within my capacities. It's not always possible. There are still so many prejudices against disabled people, who are often treated as eternal children rather than serious, responsible adults.But before I finish, there's something essential I need to tell you about. I don't walk this hard road alone. Beyond my parents, every moment of my life—good or bad, big or small—I share with my friends. Their love for me makes up for everything I struggle with. I'm so proud of them because over these years I've seen in each of them a sincerity and spontaneity that are the true foundation of friendship.
I'm not sure how to explain the equal relationship we have. It's not just them helping me, advising me, supporting me. I help them too. It sounds almost too good to be true, but slowly we're making it real. And if one day the young people around me become good doctors or researchers working to understand and solve disability, if they become architects or engineers designing buildings without barriers, if they become lawmakers passing laws for people like me, or simply mothers and fathers teaching their children to look for the talents in those around them—not what's missing, but what they have—then all the struggles and heartache that people like me face every day will mean something.
If one day mothers and fathers teach their children to look for the talents in those around them—not what's missing, but what they have...
Please don't read this and imagine some serene, happy girl bravely facing her disability with grace and courage. That would be reductive and false. I can tell you I'd give almost anything to be in a different situation, to live an ordinary life—even a boring one. Fate decided otherwise for me. So I face each day as it comes, without imagining what my life would look like if things had gone differently. Besides, maybe I wouldn't be the same person, with the character people see in me now. What I can say is that this isn't resignation.I was asked to write these pages to help and comfort others facing what I face. I have no right to teach anyone anything. Other people's suffering doesn't erase your own. The only thing I can suggest is: open yourself to others as much as you can. And don't let yourself become someone with a disability who harbors prejudice against the so-called "normal" people around you.
Well, I've managed to write this letter to my imaginary pen pals. But who knows? Maybe they won't stay imaginary after all.
- Gaia Valmarin, 1990
===FINE===