A 14 year old Winnipeg boy with Spina Bifida was pushed and locked in a burning shed by 3 little girls and boy all under the age of 12.
When the story was first related to me, i was horrified, but i was also under the impression that the boy had died. He survived, after spending at least 5 minutes in shed hearing the kids dancing and taunting him on the outside. Parent's in the building complex finally came to the boys rescue. The boy's name is Brian McKay, remember it. He may have Spina Bifida but he proved yesterday that he was survivor. Just like so many individuals with Spina Bifida are survivors. While what happened to him was most definitely a crime against humanity, it only proves that now more then ever that individuals with disabilities need to step up and own their disabilities and learn to be proud of themselves and proud of the community they belong too. So many kids and adults with Spina Bifida slip through the cracks, and many feel unloved and outcast by society. Not just in everyday life, but in the disabled community as well. I should know i was one, i did slip through the cracks. I knew nothing about my disability, and it was easier to let kids pick on me because of it. How was I to know they were wrong in being ignorant? How was i to know that having a disability doesn't automatically make you a lesser member of society or weak. Brian McKay says in the article i have linked to this site that "his legs were too weak to kick down the door." I don't think that makes him a weak person. I mean he tried didn't he? He even tried to make friends with people in his neighbour and it's just sheer ignorance and intolerance that led to that horrific act against him. Neither him or his disability have any blame in the events that occurred.
We need to make the world more aware of the strength and vitality a person with a disability has. That A person with Spina Bifida has. It was for that reason that i started this blog in the first place. Not just to show the struggles i go through trying to cope with the sudden and gradual changes my body flung at me, but also to talk about my successes as well. To prove to myself and anyone else who is willing to listen, that I can be ANYTHING i want to be. I may have to go about things a bit differently, recognized my limitations and finds ways around or over them, but they aren't walls just obstacles that i am willing to tackle.
So I want to applaud Brian McKay for surviving. for talking to reporters, for making his story known. And i want him to never stop fighting or moving forward. There are quite a few people out there in this big wide world who just assume we will out of sheer ignorance. And i think it's definitely time we start proving them wrong. Not by starting to not give up on life but to keep showing them all of the millions of wonderful people who never do and never have and never will. The people who inspire me the most are persons with disabilities. Not because they have accomplished show much inspite of their condition, but because they have done so much more wonderful things with their lives then people who don't consider themselves disabled. Maybe it's because they thrive off challenge, and so called 'normal' people don't feel challenged so they are the ones that give up.
So i hope you read Brian McKay's story, and get your friends to read it, and they get their friends to read it. It is a story that should not be forgotten, and should serve as a bright vivid reminder of how many more challenges WE MUST overcome, because incidents like these should not happen, and it will take every individual that cares to stop it from happening over and over again.
