I Have A Disability

• Megan Hau, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2014

My name is Farqueza and I am 12 years old. I have always been the odd one out. No matter where I am. People stare at me like I'm an alien. I feel as if I do not belong here. My legs are futile, my arms are non-responsive. I can't do anything except sit in a wheelchair, watching days, months pass by. Why me? I can not play with other children. One look at me and they sprint off. I loathe them. I loathe myself. What is the point of me being in this world if I make no difference, only put more weight on my parent's shoulders? I wish the ground could swallow me up. I wish that I could disappear from the Earth, vanish into thin air. I look at myself sometimes and wonder what I could be doing if I hadn't been born this way. I can not go anywhere without a person's aid. Staring at people who take their working limbs for granted. I envy them. Staring at children crying because they can not have something. I wonder how much they would've cried if they were like me. They are lucky, but they don't know that. I wish they did. I wonder sometimes if they've ever experienced the trapped feeling like I have, like I will always. Sometimes I want to chop my limbs right off, thinking that they are a waste of the blood that needs to feed my atrophic muscles. I know I will never be the same as them, no matter how hard I try. I have no purpose in this life. I am useless. I am a disabled person.

My name is Miriam and I am 12 years old. I am a person with a disability. I was born that way. But I don't care. Even though I cannot move my limbs, I do not see myself as useless. I see myself as a person who was brave enough to take on and live with this disability. I am luckier than some. I have food to fill my stomach, a house for me to call home and family that care. I have a plan in life. I will become a speaker and advocate for people with disabilities. I will help that of my own kind, despite my disadvantages. I can still learn, I can still speak out so I see no reason for me to hide behind the curtains. I don't care what people call me. Let them think of it that way. They will never change my perspective of myself. What they say is not true. There is a difference between opinion and fact. I am strong-willed and giving up is not of my character. I believe that there is an opportunity for anyone to do whatever they like, they just have to take it. And I will take mine.