Be inspired

"We are all skiers" read the sign welcoming us to the Adaptive Ski Programme. I love that!

For Reuben with no natural balance who can fall over just when standing still when he loses concentration, to have gained the trust of his instructor of 4 years to take the gait trainer/slider away after a year off skis, this is incredible. Only this morning I was contemplating, will Reuben ever be able to ski without tethers and the gait trainer so my socks were truly knocked off when the aide was withdrawn permanently from his records.

I remember when Reuben was diagnosed with CHARGE Syndrome. The shock at the time, the grief, lead to an amalgam of confused thoughts, from which emerged moments of lamenting such as "He'll never ski", "He'll never hear me sing". They were strange things to worry about in the grand scheme of things, perhaps a way to divert my mind from the dreadful question of "Will he survive through the night?". Yet they were real tangibles, things that separated the future from what I'd hoped, assumed, it might be. Nearly 8 years have now passed and I can say, I cannot envisage a boy who could bring such greater happiness to so many and knock every sensory and medical challenge out of the way in order to live a life so utterly full of life. "We are all skiers" and skiing the metaphor or life itself. We just have to think and feel big in order to achieve our greatest goals in life. Self actualisation is alive and well in this 7 year old's soul whom I'm daily flabbergasted to call my own son.


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