By Henrylito D. Tacio
Blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and stuttering can make someone disabled for life. As such, some disabled people suffer from humiliation and being despised by society.
But time and again, there are those who have proven that they can still achieve what normal people can do. Despite the odds, some of them became rich, famous, and well-known. They don’t believe that being handicapped is a hindrance to become successful. But most of them have the same criteria: determination, tenacity, courage, and perseverance.
They don’t blame someone for being what they are. Instead of considering their disability as a liability, they see it as an asset. But they did extra effort to reach their goals; they believed in what they could do.
“I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God,” said Helen Keller, an American author and educator who was blind and deaf. Actually, she was not born blind and deaf; it was not until nineteen months of age that she came down with an illness described by doctors as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain,” which could have possibly been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind.
Another famous blind is Stevie Wonder, an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. Blind from infancy, it is thought that he received excessive oxygen in his incubator which led to retinopathy of prematurity, a destructive ocular disorder affecting the retina, characterized by abnormal growth of blood vessels, scarring, and sometimes retinal detachment. He has recorded over 30 top hits and won 21 Grammy Awards.
Louis Braille became blind after he accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with his father’s awl. He later became an inventor and designed Braille writing, which enables blind people to read through a series of organized bumps representing letters. This concept was beneficial to all blind people from around the world and is commonly used even today. If it were not for his blindness he may not have invented this method of reading and no other blind person could have enjoyed a story or been able to comprehend important paperwork.
An Italian astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher, Galileo Galilei was responsible for the scientific revolution. He was the first to discover the four largest satellites of Jupiter which were named the Galilean moons in his honor. He had also improved compass design and eventually opposed the geocentric view. His sight started to deteriorate at the age of 68 years old and eventually led to complete blindness.
There are people who are victims of polio, a highly contagious, sometimes fatal, viral infection that can produce permanent muscle weakness and paralysis. Jack Nicklaus has suffered from a mild case of polio at a younger age but was able to get through it without too many problems. He eventually became a professional golfer winning several championships and tournaments in a row, beating some of the best golfers of his time. In fact, “The Golden Bear,” as he called it, is thought by many to be the greatest golfer of all times.
Who never heard of Maria Gracia Cielo “Grace” Magno Padaca, the former governor of Isabela. The physically challenged look to her, a polio victim, as proof that being handicapped is no barrier to success (valedictorian in elementary and high school and magna cum laude in college). At the age of 44, she was bestowed the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service for “empowering Isabela voters to reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing, and to contribute as full partners in their own development.”
Like Grace Padaca, former Senator Ernesto Herrera overcame a physical handicap caused by polio during his childhood to become one of the country’s outstanding leaders. He is the first Asian and the second individual to receive the George Meany International Human Rights Awards in 1985. He was likewise conferred the International Award of Honor by the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Association of New York.
Before him, there was Apolinario Mabini, a political philosopher and revolutionary who wrote a constitutional plan for the first Philippine republic of 1899-1901, and served as its first prime minister in 1899. In Philippine history texts, he was often referred to as “the Sublime Paralytic,” and as “the Brains of the Revolution.” To his enemies and detractors, he was referred to as the “Dark Chamber of the President.”
“Left-handedness is a stigma of degeneracy,” said 19th-century Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who found the jails full of it. In fact, there are those who believe that being left-handed is a hindrance to success. But a lot of famous people proved this statement wrong. Consider this list: Albert Einstein, Alexander the Great, Babe Ruth, Benjamin Franklin, Carol Burnett, Cloris Leachman, Goldie Hawn, Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid, Jerry Seinfeld, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Paul McCartney, Peter Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Ross Perot, Tom Cruise, and Bruce Willis.
Some of the famous presidents to come out from the United States are lefties: Gerald Ford, James A. Garfield, Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Some world leaders are also left-handed: George II, Fidel Castro, King George VI, King Louis XVI, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and Prince William.
The Philippines has its shares of famous left-handed personalities: Joseph Estrada (former actor who became the president of the republic), Vilma Santos (an award-winning actress), Lito Lapid (an actor turned politician), and Manny Pacquiao (the world’s famous boxer).
Stuttering is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases. Tiger Woods had stuttering problems at childhood but he got past it through hard work and practice. He admitted doing everything possible to conquer his speech disorder including talking to his dog until he would fall asleep. He did have a lot of help from his family, especially his mother. He then became one of the most successful golfers the world has ever known.
German-born American actor Bruce Willis has had stuttering problems throughout his youth and was always scared it would affect his acting career. Fortunately he successfully grew out of it not too much from a therapist but from being an actor, it actually removed his speech disorder.
British actor Rowan Atkinson had a stutter as a child and had problems with the letter B. He overcame it through over-articulation which he turned into a comic device. He has been listed as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.
According to the Bible, Moses had a speech impediment. When God told Moses to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, Moses replied, “But my Lord, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence, either before or since you have spoken to your servant. I am a slow speaker and not able to speak well” (Exodus 4:10).
“Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices,” Dr. Paul Tournier once said.
Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin believes in that. She became deaf during infancy. But it didn’t stop her to star in many movies and television shows, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in the film Children of a Lesser God.
Stephen Hawking was raised in a very close, scholarly family. In the early 60’s while at Cambridge University, he noticed he was stumbling a lot and his speech was slurred. In January 1963, at the age of 21, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He returned to school and received his Ph.D. in 1966. In 1977, he was the first professor of Gravitational Physics at Cambridge University. Two years later, he achieved the highest position available at Cambridge when he became a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. In 1988, he published a book called A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes.
Then, there’s Christy Brown, an Irish author, painter and poet. He had cerebral palsy and was incapable for years of deliberate movement or speech. Doctors considered him to be mentally disabled as well. However, his mother continued to speak to him, work with him, and try to teach him until he famously snatched a piece of chalk from his sister with his left foot to make a mark on the floor.
Christy was about five years old and only his left foot responded to his will. His mother then taught him the alphabet and he laboriously copied each letter, holding chalk between his toes. He learned to spell out words and finally to read. The Academy Award-winning film My Left Foot profiled his life.
Jhamak Ghimire is a poet and writer from Nepal who has won many awards for her writing of literature. Born in 1980 with cerebral palsy, her desire led her to learn to read and write. She went on to become one of the leading and well respected literary figures of her country. In fact, she has become a symbol of courage to people with disabilities around the world.
“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped,” Hubert H. Humphrey pointed out. – ###
