(I just thought of sharing this little short story to inspire people. A product of my imagination and my insomnia... some characters and events are fictitious, some lines borrowed from some articles.)
Angie is now 32 years old. She comes from a very wealthy family. Being an only child and an heiress to a 200-acre ranch and a multimillion dollar real estate business, she looks across her office window and realizes that spring was around the corner. The temperature was now less cold, the trees beginning to show tiny outgrowths of green leaves from which the brown and golden ones had fallen off during the autumn and was totally devoid of any sign of life during the winter. “Ah!” she thought, “Life!”
She lets off a long sigh as she wheels herself across the wine bar to help herself to a glass of gin tonic. She looks at her lifeless legs and her motionless feet wearing these beautifully crafted strappy sandals by Stuart Weitzman. They were beautiful, extravagant and fashionable. Angie thought to herself, “I would give everything I have to walk through the park with these.” She gulps the glass of gin and tonic and as she did, she could not help but feel sorry for herself. She had everything in the world—money, power, fame. Tears began to run down her cheeks as she realizes that no amount of money or power or fame would ever make her walk or dance again.
Suddenly, spring seemed like winter once again as she winces as she remembers how she got herself to how and what she is today—a paraplegic and a sociophobic.As a young girl, Angie was fun loving and free spirited, spoiled but not a brat, she loved to dance. At six years old, she had traveled to the seven continents in a private plane that her father owned. At seven, she had watched the best ballerinas in the world in their world premieres. She was in the front row with her mother and father and watched Sylvie Guillem, Alina Cojocaru, Svetlana Zakharova and Alina Somova as they awed their audiences in their ballet performances. It was then that Angie dreamed to become just like them. She herself wanted to be a ballerina—a prima ballerina. And to do that, she had to learn from the best.
Supportive of her dreams, Angie’s parents sought the best ballet teachers in Britain to help her achieve that dream, and at ten, when she was ready she enrolled at the Birmingham Royal Ballet. It was then that she learned to dedicate herself to the art of ballet and as such devoted all of her efforts in becoming the best ballerina in her class. Angie’s parents gave her all the love and the support that she needed. They knew the challenges that lie ahead of Angie—long hours of practice, maintaining her figure, keeping herself healthy and still juggle her time to attend to her academic school.She did excellently with her academics, having been accelerated three times; she had time to study ballet and still would be of the right age to go to college. Unlike others who did not have the luxury of time or the resources to live their passion and still have an excellent education, Angie seemed to have been blessed with both. She had asked permission from her parents that she wanted to finish her high school first, give herself three years in ballet performing her favorite shows and then she would be off to Oxford to study medicine. She wanted to specialize in Pediatrics having seen so many children in the orphanages her father brought her to who needed care and medical attention.
In her heart, she loved the children and would do everything she could to help them, but she loved to dance too. She was all too happy to know that she could do both and she had the time and the money to pursue both her dreams.In her high school valedictory address, she had said, “Life is much like a ballet dance. We gracefully twirl around life’s unexpected twists and turns. And when we bow out, we bow out with pride when we know we have given not only our hands to the people who need our help, but more than that, our hearts. It is in giving our hearts that we understand who we ought to be. When we dance with all our hearts, then we live life to the fullest.” A roaring applause from the audience followed and her parents were very proud of their Angela.Angie’s friends were so proud of her. They loved being around her. Nikki, her best friend tagged along with every trip Angie’s parents and her went to. Nikki to Angie was her sister from another mother.
While many had difficulty balancing such a lifestyle, Angie breezed through ballet school and came out top of her class. True to her word, she gave her heart to every dance, to every performance so much so that she was chosen as lead in the school’s yearly event. In her performance of The Nutcracker, she awed not only the audience, but the ballet critics that were sitting on the front row. In the review that was later published in the London Times, “In the Birmingham Royal Ballet's production, one experiences a sense of deep magic that even extends to the kingdom of the sweets, especially when the kingdom of sweets is presided over by Angela Nishidi as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Rico Chionelli as her Prince.Nishida is the perfect ballerina, truly exuding ownership and radiating a luminous guardianship over her sugary kingdom and even more so over the excellence and beauty of her choreography and music. Graceful, lovely and truly captivating, every nuance of the Grand Pas de Deux with Chionelli, from poignant heartache to crystalline delicacy, is embodied in the exemplary stretch and speed of her dancing. This Sugar Plum Fairy is no tinkling ballet cliche, but a treasure of classical style.”
After this performance, she was becoming a celebrity in her city. She had two more years to be a prima ballerina, after those two years, it will be off to medical school which she was excited about as well. Her popularity grew in the ballet world and soon, she would have her father produce her own version of the Swan Lake. She was very excited. Every muscle in her body wanted to leap out with grace as she practiced day in and day out. She wanted everything graceful, from her dance steps to the music to the scenery—every last detail must be excellent.She did what every ballerina did to prepare herself for such a momentous occasion—practiced harder every day, pushed herself to the limit every single day. She wanted every pirouette, every Coupé jeté en tournan perfect! She wanted everything to be just what she had dreamed this performance to be—just perfect! This was her dream come true. This was what she wanted her whole life. Angie’s parents couldn’t be more proud of her and did everything they could to get media coverage on her very first national performance.As the day of her performance drew near, she grew more and more anxious. She ate less and less. She became very conscious of her figure, how she looked through camera lenses. She became irritable. Every mistake made her angry. Every single bit of crooked curtain line took her out of her focus and they would start all over again. The people around her began to grow weary of her as she steadily lost a good deal of weight. She was gagging herself forcing herself to throw up after a spoonful of food. She only drank water, lots and lots of water.Angie could no longer sleep at night and would spend hours in the dance room of their mansion and just practice. Her parents, worried that she might fall ill because of these habits were more concerned at the change of her attitude. Gone was the amiable, fun loving, passionate Angie that they knew. She would raise her tone of voice now when she was asked why she had skipped a meal. Angie’s father could only silently walk away, praying her daughter was just jittery and nervous.Angie’s mother knew from Angie’s actions and habits that she was bulimic, having gone through the same herself and when she confronted Angie about it, Angie slammed the door at her. Angie’s mother ran to the courtyard crying and praying that Angie would be alright.The day of the performance came. Although her father had insisted on driving her to the theater, Angie vehemently refused and instructed him that she was going to drive herself there. “Go now and prepare my dressing room.” She had commanded her father. Her father could do nothing but oblige.Angie never got to perform what could be the pinnacle of her success as a ballerina, instead, on that same day, over the local channels, her silver BMW wrapper around a tree flashed so many times on TV screens in every household in London. Instead of it being a joyous occasion, this day loomed of sadness and gloom. Every media outfit was in the accident scene.
Angie was rushed to the emergency room. Doctors and nurses performed CPR on her for almost ten minutes and then that first beep of life let out of the machines. No amount of stimulus could rouse her, but the fact that there was beeping on the machines attached to her told everyone that she was still alive.For a year, the incessant beeping of her heart was what you could hear, but a year after her accident, Angie opened her eyes. She could move her hands, but let out a shriek of sorrow when she realized that she could not feel anything from her waist down to the tip of her toes. The doctor told her, she may never walk again. It was a miracle in itself that she woke up from her year-long coma, but to walk again, it was likely another miracle if that were to happen for a C6 Spinal cord injury.She underwent Physical Therapy with the hope that she could walk again, she could dance again. After all, she woke up from her coma! For a year, she went through rigorous therapy, she participated in the strengthening program that was given her. She wanted to be back on her feet and when all the people in her care team saw that she had reached the maximum benefit of her hospitalization and physical therapy, she was discharged to go home.On returning home, everything seemed the same. Her room had been untouched from that day she had left for her performance. Angie’s mother welcomed her with a bouquet of flowers and her father wheeled her in. Her wheelchair was specially designed for her mobility and her needs with buttons that navigated her wherever she wanted to go in the mansion. Everything was just a touch away.Angie asked for the telephone as she had wanted to talk to her best friends. Her mother was reluctant to give her the phone. She told Angie she needed to rest. She had all the time to talk to her friends, not today. She could do it some other day. As she was left in her bedroom, she flicked on the remote and suddenly, her flat screen TV came to life. It was the news. It was something about ballet, what was that? Nikki Constantin? Her best friend. What? She had taken her place! Nikki was the best ballet dancer in the whole of London now! Angie could hear no more! She threw the remote at the TV and she cried.For days after her discharge, Angie never left the confines of her room. She never talked to anybody. She threw things at the people who entered her room so that her meals were taken there when she was actually asleep. She hated being alive and wished silently that she would have died in that car accident a year ago. She never drew her drapes. It was always dark and damp in her room. No one dared to enter her room. She managed to give herself her own medications, changed if she felt the need to, but she was dirty and filthy.
One day, Angie wondered where her father was. She decided to wheel herself out of her fortress. Outside, what she saw shocked her. Her father was lying seemingly lifeless on the front door with her mother cradling his head on her lap. She asked what happened, and in tears, her mother explained that from the time Angie was hospitalized, he had become an alcoholic. He frequented the local bars and would stay there until the wee hours of the morning and came home the same way he did today, too drunk to even walk up to the bedroom.Angie could only cry. She wanted so much to stand up, run to her mother and father and say sorry for causing them so much pain. No one deserved this kind of pain. Not especially her dear parents that had supported her and loved her and gave her everything even when things seemed impossible. She owed her life and her second life not only to the Higher Power that was watching over her, but to her dear, dear parents who stood beside her even when things seemed bleak and hopeless.Angie’s tears stopped as she felt the comfort of the arms of her mother and as she saw her father trying to rouse himself from his stupor, she told herself, “I am going to live again.”
