"My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels-
Its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour, found;
Measuring the gulf it stoops and dares the final bound!"
EMILY BRONTË
Driving home from the clinic, she asks me if there's something wrong with her. We've spent the morning with a paediatric occupational health therapist assessing her difficulties with co-ordination. Simple tasks like writing, cutting with scissors and using a knife and fork are a huge challenge for her. She's only seven years old but already she's being made to feel she doesn't measure up, that what is expected of her and what she can do are too far apart. I don't want her to feel that she isn't enough just the way she is. She has taught me more about being free than anyone. She hasn't wasted one moment of her life being somebody she was never made to be. She has dared always from the moment she fell into this world, believing everything was possible even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. She dared her first breath when none was to be had.
"No," I tell her, "There is nothing wrong with you. You are wonderful. You just have to work hard to be able to do some of the things the rest of us find easy and we have to work hard to do the things that you find easy."
"Like what?" she asks.
"Like flying!" I think out loud and she laughs.
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