The woman (I wish I could remember her name) is a professional dancer. Amazingly, she could easily get not only through auditions, but also months into a show before anyone realized one arm wasn't real. Like Houdini, she perfected the art of deception. Confidently, she told the audience how she had tricks for every situation to fool the eye of every beholder into looking at something else. In many ways, her life was spent hiding. You could hear bitterness in her voice after years of living a life she wished in some ways she didn't have.
I ached for our Violet. Will she someday feel the same way about her leg and foot?
We live at our town pool in the summer. Every time we go, Violet is watched. Often by children, but more often by adults. It's common for me to notice people look at her and then whisper among themselves and look again. From most expressions, they are curious. Not mocking or mean, just curious. Always I wish we had our own pool so Violet wouldn't be the subject of everyone's musings.
On the afternoon I heard the show, we later went to the pool. Within minutes of entering the water, a little girl stared at Violet. She hovered around us. She gawked. She went so far as to go under the water and swim within inches, eyes wide open to look at Violet's foot. I wondered how my daughter felt.
Was she embarrassed? Uncomfortable? Wishing she could look like everyone else?
As I prepared to gently teach the staring girl how to treat people with physical differences, she popped up out of the water.
"What happened to her foot?" The universal question asked not just by kids, but adults.
"Nothing. She was born with her foot just like you were," I answered, trying my best to be kind.
She stared some more.
"It's really cute!" she replied.
She then gave Violet a super big smile and together they decided to play. They splashed and dove and giggled until it was time to leave and I was left with a hybrid of emotions...still broken from the morning's radio show, yet seeing the next generation embrace diversity.
I'm not naive enough to think that all people will be this accepting or that Violet will not struggle with some of the same feelings as the dancer. But I have hope.
I have hope that this generation of young people will change the way the world views disabilities. To Violet, her physical differences are only a disability when others think they are. To her, they're just well...her. And she's ok with that. She doesn't see anything wrong with herself. She refuses to let her difference limit who she is or what she will achieve.
I have hope that someday, when she's auditioning for whatever roles life gives her that she'll be confident enough to face them head on. No hiding. No shame. Just confidence that the God who made her knew exactly what He was doing.
