One Foot In Front of the Other

We were given this wonderful story and wanted to share it with you.

“Daring” is an adjective usually reserved for a very specific kind of person: someone who throws caution to the wind, skipping responsibilities for adventure to prove their courageousness. But to be daring is not just to embrace danger behind a flamboyant façade of bravery – it is to challenge everyone’s expectations of you by creating your own path and sticking to it, especially when obstacles arise. To be truly daring is not just about taking risks; it’s about letting go of what you know in order to learn or gain something new. Every time you dare yourself to do something, you do it at the risk of losing something else.

One woman in particular embodies everything I would positively define as “daring” – my oldest friend, Hannah. Our fathers had been best friends since the age of eight, and as I was born only six months after her, we were absolutely inseparable from the start. I can remember crawling around on the floor with her and her siblings (all six of them), pretending we were animals from The Lion King. We played this game far past our toddler years, partly because we enjoyed it so much and partly because we could do things like that with Hannah. I didn’t realize it for so long, but as I grew up, it became clear – Hannah couldn’t walk.

My mother eventually explained to me that Hannah was born very prematurely and has cerebral palsy that primarily affects her legs. I remember her siblings and I always wanted to use her walker since we thought it was a play toy that only Hannah got to have; after all, Hannah is very special. She was always the smartest and sweetest one, and could keep up with me better than my friends who didn’t have walkers. In middle school, Hannah came with me to every single dance. I’m not going to lie – some people stared. But Hannah never stopped dancing, and let me tell you – she’s a fantastic dancer. She’s so good that she has participated in two stage productions a year for the past 10 years. She’s managed not just to keep up with me in my walking-oriented activities, but she has actually accomplished more than me in a lot of different areas of life.

Hannah’s incredible stamina and charismatic attitude isn’t what is especially daring about her. The thing that makes Hannah the most daring woman I know is that Hannah is 21 and she is learning how to walk. One day recently in her living room, Hannah released her hands from her walker’s handles and proceeded to take steps. It was just a few before she eventually fell, but Hannah dared herself to defy her physical condition and let go to the actual structure that has kept her upright for 20 years. She steps knowing she will fall, but that’s what makes her so daring – she’s not afraid of what could go wrong, she’s only focused on what will go right. She dares to make herself a miracle.

-Sara DeNault