“After several unanswered phone calls and texts, I rushed to the hospital. The surgeons called me into a tiny room with a white board. The news didn’t hit me until I had to relay it to my parents. All we could do was sob.”
‘His last text said, ‘Bank robber.’ My heart raced and I ran upstairs. I received a message from a stranger offering condolences to my fiancé. I had no idea what was going on.’
‘Momma, why can’t I walk like my friends?’ His legs were sticking straight up in the air, unable to bend. A lady in Walmart was staring long and hard.’
“His 6-year-old brother stepped in. He said, ‘What’s wrong? Haven’t you ever seen a kid in a wheelchair?’ I’ve lost count of the number of times a parent has told their children, ‘Stay away from that child!'”
‘Where is Gabriel?’ I remember screaming my boyfriend’s name ‘Gabriel!’ but no reply. My sister found me and said, ‘You are okay, they are coming to help you’ that night was the most confusing and heartbreaking of my life.’
“I saw myself laying in the grass listening to my sister screaming my name looking for me. ‘Marcela! Marcela! I remember her screaming, ‘I’m here but I cannot move!’”
‘One boy said, ‘Why is she even in here? She’s f—king crippled!’ I ignored it, but it would get worse. My mom and I got into a huge argument. She stopped, and looked at me in shock.’
“One day someone came to talk to me at lunch. I thought, ‘Finally someone wants to be my friend!’ Instead, they cut me off by saying, ‘If I was you I would kill myself because I couldn’t live like that.'”
‘Who is this,’ I asked. ‘This is Ty’s assistant principal. I just came upon a car accident on my way home. It’s Ty, and he is not good.’ Wait, what?
“I told him I would let him know when I was home from school, so he could come pick me up. Little did I know when I made that phone call, the details I heard on the other end would change our lives forever. Nothing would ever, ever be the same.”
‘I was ejected and thrown 50 feet from my car. I died that day. I knew I couldn’t feel my legs, but I didn’t know why. I was told I would never walk again.’
“I think every girl dreams of walking down the aisle to her husband. I had pictured it in my head since I was a little girl. I didn’t want that picture to play out differently just because of my accident. So I chased my dream.”
‘On my way to work the sidewalks were blocked by Bird electric scooters in not one, but THREE, places’: Wheelchair user receives ‘astounding’ response to social media plea
“On my way to work, it became personal. The folks who charge the scooters at night placed them out in the morning—effectively blocking anyone from using the sidewalk. While others might be able to walk around the scooters, I didn’t have that choice.”
‘I was sexually assaulted. I decided this was going to become a long suicide. I was a loser, complete trash, and I sold my soul to drugs and alcohol.’
“Here I was at 23, with Multiple Sclerosis and I needed a wheelchair. I grew into a deep depression. The party had ended. My mother would have to bathe me, feed me, dress me. I’d repay her with years of heartache. Also in these years, I found opiates.”
‘Something wasn’t right. It took a long time for him to be diagnosed.’ Family desperately loves their beloved grandfather through his heartbreaking ALS progression
“My sisters and I will wipe or scratch his nose, brush his teeth, wash his hair, shave his face, clip his nails, clean out his ears and wipe his eyes.”
‘People don’t understand how important it is to NOT park on the blue/yellow lines’: Mother of child with special needs urges others to respect handicap parking rules
“We run into the issue of someone parking in the blue lines or placing their shopping cart on the lines and blocking our ramp about 1-2 times per week.”
