Huge thanks to Alison over at Ideaslist for the reminder about this post! I did half of it the other day and had to abandon it and then forgot… so serious thanks for the reminder because I would hate not to get these up here!

This is me taken right before the race for life. I’m wearing a bright pink top with my runner number pinned on using safety pins. My number is 8856 (just in case you were interested!). I’m wearing a cap as well. Mostly the background is grass but you can see bits of a some people too.

My back with the back sign pinned on.  It’s bright pink with a purpley blue border and printing.  It says “I race for life for…” and then I wrote on My Gran which I did in a big silver craft marker.  I also underlined that with squiggly lines and drew a squiggly border too.  There is quite a lot of “pink space” too which would be white (blank) space only the whole thing is pink and lets not pretend, lol.  I’d almost say the top and the sign are the same shade of pink.

This is me and Sam just past the finish line; you can see it in the background.  I’m on the left and Sam’s on the right.  I have my hands in the air in a “success” or “victory!” type pose.  We both have big grins.

Finally a photo that really comes before the last but that I wanted to finish with.

I think this is probably my favourite of all of the Race for Life photos and it’s one that makes me very grateful that my mum just points and clicks on the off chance as opposed to my Dad’s staged pictures take on photos.  It’s a group of women all walking/running away from the camera.  You can see the path, some grass, shady area (one of a very few!) and some pink ribbon to the side which was used to mark the course.  And a little way in the crowd of people you can see the back of me and my wheelchair with my water bottle hanging off the back.  Being a part of that huge crowd was a really empowering and defining moment for me and I like to think that this photo shows that and shows the way I felt.

There’s an English Proverb:

A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words

I think that’s true, I don’t think I could sum it up properly with words but I hope this photo shows you what I see and what I felt.

Pictures hold life’s experiences. And I feel that with every experience you learn something. Therefore, you learn something with every picture you take.
~Anonymous

I learnt from the Race for Life.  I learnt just how worth it it truly is/was.  And I learnt that I do still have the strength I had years ago.  It was waiting there for me to rediscover it once again.  And I once again did something “impossible.”

When one picks up ones camera and freezes a moment in time we all get a glimpse of ones soul ~ Anonymous

Well, I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I think Race for Life and my writings and photos I’ve shared about it show my soul to the world.  But I do think the experience helped me to replenish my soul and along on my journey to who I want to be.  To find who Emma needs to be in the future.  It’s a never ending journey but this is another step along the way.  I have great memories of the day but I’m glad I have these photos too.

” Courage doesn’t always roar.  Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’ ” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

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” If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can move mountains ” Matthew 17:20

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” You can’t give up hope because its hopeless, you gotta hope even more, and cover your ears and go blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah! ”
~Philip J.Fry, Futurama

***

The first quote is one of my favourites, if not my all time favourite quote.  The second is one I am ambivalent about.  I don’t really like the full verse from the bible nor it’s connotations but I do like the idea of faith.  The third is something of a silly quote and it’s one I found years ago.  It just popped into my head earlier today for some reason.

Courage, faith and hope are some of the most important things in this world.  If you ask me they are probably some of the most important things in life as well (at least to me).

Why do I like them?  Because they remind me that sometimes the simple fact of keeping going is a form of being courageous - and that it’s ok to struggle.  Because they remind me how important it is to have faith in myself even if it seems to me that no one else does.  Because they remind me to be hopeful whenever possible.

After all, life is hard.  And people get it wrong.  Sometimes we think we can’t do something and other times we are told we won’t be able to do something.  We can be wrong.  And more importantly, so can those other people, those so called experts.

It’s like the phrase “it’s always darkest before the dawn.”

It is pretty dark every day and that can be tough - but dawn comes round again day after day like clockwork.  And that brings better times.

For the longest time I’ve been living (or trying to live) with the belief that no matter what happens, I’ll be OK.  Courage, Faith and Hope play a huge role in that - and the quotes I shared above help me to focus on that.

I wrote a sort of similar yet kinda unrelated post about this sort of thing here

A while back I spent some time browsing the Blog Carnival site.  I love the Disability Blog Carnival and I was wondering what other carnivals there are out there.  Sadly there are a lot of carnivals listed that would interest me but which seem to have been abandoned after only one or two editions.  That makes me very happy that our very own Disability Blog Carnival is going so well and will soon be publishing it’s 34th edition.

Anyway, I just got a notification that the latest Carnival of Quotes is up - and that an entry I submitted is included.  I love quotes and I love this carnival which I’ve been following for a little while.  I’ve not had a chance to read many of the other submissions yet but this does look like a great selection - particularly the quotes on martial arts which have been included.

And if you’re looking for The Disability Blog Carnival, the current edition is over at Andrea’s Buzzing About and can be found, here.  The next edition will be at Reimer Reason a week on Thursday and has the topic of “The Hardest Part.”  Which I think is a Coldplay lyric?  It’s a topic that’s really making me think and that I’m looking forward to tackling.   Submissions can be made through this form

Anyway, I have some carnival submissions to read… and some thinking to do… I love the way the quotes make me think and muse and generally ponder life.

“If someone asked you ‘can you swim a mile?’ you’d say ‘nah’. But if you found yourself dumped out at sea, you’d swim the mile. You’d make it.”

~Gertrude Boyle

I got a copy of “Women Know Everything!” 3,241 Quips, Quotes, & Brilliant Remarks for Christmas. It’s been lying by the side of my keyboard for the past week or so and I’ve been flipping through it as the mood takes me.

The above quote comes from that book and was in the perseverance section.

I get a lot (a lot) of comments from people about how hard it must be to be in a wheelchair, how they could never do it, how they they really admire me because of it.

At the moment with me doing a lot in my manual chair the current favourites seem to be either offering to push me “because that must tire you out.” or just starting to push me as an acquaintance of my dad’s did this morning (I sat there going “i’ve got it, i’m fine” and he stopped when my dad backed me up).

My favourite comment at present wins that award for it’s sheer “argh!!” value is when complete strangers stop me and suggest I would be better off with a powerchair and - get this - they sometimes even make vague comments about how they could fundraise for me to get one. I enjoy telling those people that I’ve got a powerchair i’m just trying to get fit and thus using my manual. They never know how to react and this is probably really cruel of me but I enjoy that moment.

Perhaps I should start going up to able-bodied people who are out walking and start suggesting a car would be a better idea?! That’d be fun and it’d also help them get the idea quick like.

Cerebral Palsy and being in a wheelchair is simply a fact of my life just like having brown eyes and wearing glasses are. And I’m not inspirational or whatever, I’m just living my life. Just like you. My life is just different to yours. But so is everyone else’s. My wheels may be damn sexy. But they don’t make me special.

Gertrude Boyle said in the quote above that most people don’t think they could swim a mile but if they had to, they would. Most people think the same when it comes to my disability - that they could never live with it. What I tell everyone who comments that to me is that I have no choice - I’ve been a wheelchair user from birth and I will die (hopefully a long time in the future) a wheelchair user. It’s no big deal to me as it’s all I’ve ever known. In fact the idea of being able-bodied (the idea that I could/would/should want to be) is a strange one that really baffles me.

I tell those people who think CP is something they never could imagine, that they couldn’t cope with that they could. If they woke up tomorrow and they needed a chair, they had joined “my club” so to speak they might struggle, they might hurt and it would probably be hard. But that’s life regardless of your circumstances. They could live and survive and even thrive. Even though the very idea scares them.

Just like I do.

Because either I sink or I swim.

And personally, I love to swim.

“Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets.  So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don’t.  Believe that everything happens for a reason.  If you get a chance, take it.  If it changes your life, let it.  Nobody said it’d be easy, they just promised it’d be worth it.”

How brilliantly apt and wonderfully just right for today is that?!  Love it.

The following is a quote from my mother. She has my so-called spare wheelchair (Quickie) at her house as it went to have some work done and she’s been cleaning it up.

“So I took the fire guards off of your wheelchair…”

I tell you, wheelchairs are getting more and more high tech and multipurpose every day!

“Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and there converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.”
~William Penn,
More Fruits of Solitude

That is one of the quotes that appears in the facing pages of the newest Harry Potter book. And it’s one that really speaks to me. Reading it I felt like it was there for me to read specifically, that I needed to read it and remind myself of it’s meaning.

Particularly this weekend.

It works for more than just friends, it works for family too. And it is for family that I share it here.

It’s a year (today) since my Gran left us. She left us in body alone, she’s still here with us in many other ways. As long as we remember the love and the laughter, the bad times too. As long as we remember HER.

I love you Gran.

Lyrics from Promise Me by Beverley Craven, Photos taken onboard Tenacious. 22nd June 2007 during the first half of Middle Morning Watch which is 4 - 8am.

“I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.”

- Milton Berle

In hospitals they say you know, you know when you are going to die. Some doctors say it’s a look patients get in their eyes. Some say there’s a scent, a smell of death, some kind of sixth sense. When the great beyond is headed for you, you feel it coming. Whatever it is, it’s creepy. Because if you know, what do you do about it? Forget about the fact that you’re scared out of your mind. If you knew this was your last day on earth, how would you want to spend it?
~Meredith Grey, The End of The World, [Grey's Anatomy, Season Two]

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about that and also what I would want to do if I knew that one specific time I saw someone would be the last time I saw them. If I knew they were going to die and I would never see them again.

Obviously I’d never want to leave and for that “last time” to be over and also obviously I could never know for definite that it would be the last time.

I’ve written and deleted a lot more on this but the truth of the matter is that it all basically boils down to two things.

Carpe Diem - Seize the Day

And also it doesn’t matter if you know - and personally i’ve decided that I might have done things differently the last time I saw people I loved but they wouldn’t have wanted that. It would be an act of grief and in a way, grief is a very selfish thing, in lots of circumstances.