Accidents of Birth & Happy Holidays

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
a speaker and a graduating class.

MLA Kent Hehr

I turned 41 last week. Most likely, this birthday represents the midpoint of my existence here on the planet Earth and at the time of the writing of this blog post, I honestly can’t remember ever missing a meal or not having a place to stay. Have I felt hunger? Of course I have. That said, I have never been in worry of not being able to find a bite to eat. The same goes for having a place to stay.

Largely, this is because I did an extraordinarily smart thing before I was born. I picked my parents very well. Luckily, life has been relatively kind to them. Both came from loving families, both had the opportunity of going to public schools and eventually received teaching degrees and these skills enabled them to provide the necessities of life for both me and my sister. Furthermore, my parents have always been healthy. Even as they begin to creep into old age (my mother is turning 60 my dad 68 this year), both are collecting their teachers pensions and in good health.

So what has that meant for me? It is meant that I have never had to worry about things that others have. At the end of the day, I always knew that I had my mother and father to rely on should I need to have a meal or need a roof over my head. I found out how lucky I was at age 21 when I was a victim of a random act of violence that left me a quadriplegic. Despite this being a rough time, I still had it easy. I was able to rebuild my life at my parents house, eventually get a law degree and had time to develop the skills necessary to try and build a life for myself. I lived with my parents until I was 31. Even during this rough patch, I never missed a meal.

Last week I had the opportunity of delivering the graduation address to the Drop-In Centers career building seminar – CTI (Career Training Initiative). At the seminars, individuals worked on numerous life and computer skills with over 18 job ready certificates being offered. In those three weeks, they were able to stay in the Drop-In Center, if needed, access a meal and try to develop the skills necessary to make their way in the world.

My graduation address to them was “you can’t change the past but you can change the future”. The individuals who took part in the Drop-In Center skills program were working towards changing the future. The difference between these individuals and myself is that these individuals truly had to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps.” I on the other hand, had my parents and my sister to put the boots back on my feet and pull on the bootstraps with me after I hit my rough patch. This is very different from many of the individuals taking part in this program as they only had themselves – and thankfully, the Drop-In Center.

Clearly, what I witnessed at the DI last week was an amazing thing. People who were having severe difficulties and had found themselves in a very trying circumstance were not giving up. Instead, to use a baseball analogy, they were stepping up to the plate and taking a big swing in order to try and improve their lives. I was honored and privileged to be there.

This Christmas season, I would like to thank the Drop-In Center for providing shelter from the storm of life to individuals who may not have picked their parents quite as well as I did. Further, I would like to thank the DI staff and volunteers for giving a hand up to individuals looking for an opportunity to change their lives. Most of all, given this Christmas season, I would like to thank my parents, for being my shelter from the storm when I hit a rough patch in my life. I will say one thing about my life, I really did pick my parents well.

Thank you Kent for taking the time out from your schedule to come and speak to the graduating class.

In addition to Kent’s powerful message, class Valedictorian, Christopher Beggs gave a powerful message of hope for the future. In Chris’s words,

“One of the most valuable aspects of the CTI program to me was the way it influenced my opinion of society. I’d always felt very passionate about humanity, and as a child I watned to be a politician, however, recently I became disillusioned with all aspects of our society. My attention focused only on the suffrage, I was failing to see the armies of people that felt the same way as me, but unlike me, hadn’t given up hope, and to the contrary, were fighting the good fight. I was failing to see it until I came here. For that reason I’d like to take a minute to thank all the volunteers at the DI for donating their personal time tous. You’re doing a lot more than just filling our stomachs, teaching computer skills and life skills. You’re inspiring people one day at a time, one life at a time.

That takes me to where we go from here; and frankly that’ll be up to each of us. When we walk out of here we will be trained and ‘certified’ in a variety of ways that we can use to our advantage and, realistically, the only limits we have are the ones we set for ourselves.”