It was a sunny September morning at Father Henry Carr in 2019. As sleepy students studied in class, I was running laps next to the grass. That’s right, I was running around the track during physical education class early in the morning, feeling the cool wind breeze through my hair as I breathed in the fresh air...and sweat. After our morning run, we played soccer and I was chosen to be the goalie. I remember actually being a decent goalie since I kept blocking the opposing team’s shots. Bam! I blocked the ball with my shoulder. Bam! I blocked it with my arms. I was pretty excited to successfully play a position in soccer.
I’m definitely not an athlete... I mean even my own team was shocked at my “professional skills”. Kicking off my school day with boosted confidence, I threw the soccer ball too far from the players and down a hill, so I quickly ran to get it. As I was joyously running, the cool wind breezed on my face and thump! The next thing I knew, I was tumbling down a hill. I no longer smelled nature, but rather the dirt and grass. I think I tripped and slipped at the same time if that’s even possible. Either way, my clumsiness was at fault, shattering the confidence I had gained. With a swollen ankle, I lied there thinking, “Great. I just sprained my ankle.”
My parents picked me up and we went to the hospital, where they took an x-ray and told me it would take four to six weeks to heal, which meant that it would fully heal in November from that point. I spent the first week at home, getting accustomed to the pain and more sedate lifestyle. I then spent the next few weeks in crutches, loathing in the glances of the busy halls and embracing the questions, “Are you okay? What happened?”. I have never felt so awkward in school until then, but I was also appreciative of everyone who helped me. Some helped me get items, get to the elevator and held the door for me.
It became disastrous when we had a practice lockdown, and I was the last one to hide. Unable to actively move, I watched my classmates participate in gym, and missed my interview for Student Council as well as a history test. During the healing process, there were also group projects that required constant movements like a film project that I struggled to play my part for and a scale model house I had to help build. Helping build a scale model house was the most stressful of all the school activities I missed since I was not able to help obtain materials and move around freely, but it all eventually worked out. These unfortunate events made me long for the day that everything would go back to normal.
The day finally came, when I was first walking with both feet, free of crutches and very little pain! While I celebrated that day, other students were also looking forward to an event at the same time, which were the academic awards! The academic awards were an event that everyone looked forward to, as it was a day to celebrate achievements. Students’ names were announced one by one, and the accolades they received. Awards ranged from Honour Roll to various courses within a grade. Once it came to the grade ten students and I, we all attended and greeted each other with excitement. Then shortly after taking our seats, the ceremony started. As I watched students approach the stage, grinning from ear to ear, the audience really hyped them up! The loud cheers and praise from the audience filled the entire room, perhaps the whole school even. If I had a dollar for every time someone said “Woohoo!”, I would be rich.
I was proud of all my friends for their achievements and hyped them up too. My name was then announced, and it was the first set of stairs I had gone up since my injury. I had small discomforts while going up, but it felt painless as I went up there to receive an Honour Roll, the Visual Arts as well as the Religion subject awards! Can you believe that? Because I couldn’t either! The awards. The stairs. The sheer bliss that everyone experienced during the ceremony. It all happened on the same day. And guess what? A few days later the school held a celebratory breakfast! The whiff of fresh pancakes, floating silver balloons and blue tablecloths lifted my spirit, but what really made me remember the event were the lively smiles and interactions between everyone that differed from a dreary school day.
Now you’re probably wondering why I considered my painful foot injury a part of a positive memory in my life. I once questioned that too. As I write this story and look back on it, it was an event that taught me a few things that eventually bettered me as a person. The sprain in my foot helped me respect athletes and labourers more as they break bones and injure themselves in more painful ways than I have. My embarrassment from falling down a hill and feeling awkward walking in the halls reminded me that I should be more careful as I am naturally a clumsy person, but it’s inevitable.
I also gained an immense appreciation for people who have completely lost abilities such as walking or seeing, who constantly struggle to live an adequate lifestyle like those who don’t have disabilities. Perhaps people with disabilities felt “out of place” in a crowded room, knowing that many have what they could not have. All in all, the most hard-hitting life lesson that came out of all of this was that “there is always a rainbow after every storm.” In this case, the storm was the injury itself and the healing process, while the rainbow was the academic awards. Within the six weeks that my foot was healing, I struggled to do simple tasks and missed out on new opportunities. I felt out of place at school as people glanced at me, walking slower than them and was entitled to certain things like leaving class a few minutes earlier than everyone. Going up the stairs was the moment I knew that I healed. I healed, saw through to the end of the storm and was rewarded for it. It was surely an awarding affliction.
