I had the opportunity this week to speak in front of a crowd of young teenagers, to share my story and some of the challenges that I faced when I was put into my wheelchair.
I first started off talking about when I was their age and how much I really struggled at that time in my life with who I was. I truly believed that I had nothing good to offer, I felt alone, I felt afraid and I had no one to help me in my struggles.
I told them that I believe all teenagers struggle with some form with these emotions and anxieties, I needed to make sure that they heard out loud that there are more people going through the same kind of struggles everyday. Some of these people we’d call friends, some we only know because they went to the same schools, maybe the same church or live in the same neighborhood. I promised them that we all of us have gone through these struggles and every single one of us and has been forced to learn how to deal with them in their own way or another, some good some bad.
I spoke of how easy it is to get people’s attention now all I have to do is just roll myself into a room and people become curious and want to know why I’m in a wheelchair. Who is this guy? I am Sergio Sanchez the good-looking guy in the wheelchair. My chair makes it hard to be invisible now but it doesn’t mean that it’s changed any of the emotions and anxieties that I still go through and have gone through.
I had no outlet for feeling alone and unworthy, like sports, church youth groups or just a good role model to follow. Instead, I gravitated to the only thing that I know and that was the streets. I learned fast there are certain things that I could never do in front of people when they have decided to go down the road of the streets like crying, show weakness, or showing that somebody ever get the better of you. You’re always put in a position to have to prove that you’re down to do anything and that your not scared. To prove that you are willing to cross the line and take a risk. To prove that no matter how big the person is in front of you that you won’t back down. This was translated into acceptance and respect.
I craved the respect so much that it seemed that I lived in trouble, I was always part of the bad stuff and I gained a reputation for being down, crazy, and a troublemaker. In the eyes of my buddies, and my friends in the streets I felt like I was the man on top of the world. I never felt invisible and I always felt that I had somebody in my corner.
This way of living was why I ended up in a wheelchair. Being Reckless and only caring about how my friends saw me caused me to put myself in bad situations regularly. Situations that had me being shot at or chased by the cops on a regular basis it’s amazing that I’m still alive and it’s amazing that I never made it to prison. But this was only the beginning not the end for me.
When people see me in my wheelchair I can see that their wheels start spinning trying to imagine all the hardships that I have gone through. They want to know how I ended up in my wheelchair, the actions the steps, they want to hear everything. As soon as I let them know that I was shot 6 times their eyes open wide with amazement and unbelief that this could happen to somebody and that they still could be alive but when I tell them I was shot a second time in the back of the head they’re left speechless, there’s no way that this could ever happen to someone and not die.
I let people know that me surviving had nothing to do with anything that I did, but that it had everything to do with the Lord protecting me for something bigger. I am an example of his awesome grace. He looked past my sins and He’s revealed my purpose in life, it is to share my story so that people could see and believe. I want my story to tell a story of hope, of love and of the Lord’s grace. That no one should have to feel that they have to walk this life alone afraid and invisible.
Sergio
The guy in the chair, who lost his ability to walk, but found his mobility through a change in his heart. A change when his mind was awakened by the gift of Purpose.
“And your life will be brighter than the noonday.
Its darkness will be like the morning.” Job11:17
<div id="fb-root"></div><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/posts/1030346827011297:0" data-width="500"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/posts/1030346827011297:0"><p>We share our stories not so you know what we've been through, but so you're not afraid to share your own. Tell us, what's your story?</p>Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/">The Wheels of Grace</a> on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/posts/1030346827011297:0">Monday, February 22, 2016</a></blockquote></div></div>
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This old house has brought me many years of joy. Some tears as well. Like in all things a work in progress. I’ve surrendered to the realization that it may always be. I too am a work in progress. When we set out on the mission to buy our home I knew that it would come with remodel projects, in fact before we could move in the sink in the only bathroom the home had needed to be relocated. It blocked the path to the bathtub for a person in a wheelchair. This first project lead to the next to the next and to even this weekend we will engage in some kind of DIY project.
Over the years I have learned to embrace the opportunity to work side by side with Sergio. I know the name of most tools and I have no fear in using them.
This wasn’t always the case. There were many times when I felt I wasn’t strong enough to do a task. Especially when he could not reach and he refuse to let me call for help. I often would end up in tears. I’d find myself right smack in the middle of a task feeling too weak to continue filled with hopelessness. I would see the look that read “Oh how I wish I could take that tool and compete this for you Norah” written on Sergio’s face. Sometimes I would take a much needed bathroom break so that he couldn’t see my tears. In the bathroom I’d gather myself, wipe the tears, and set to conquer without him noticing. Well, I guess when he reads this he will know why I had so many brakes.
Sergio and I call this our marriage therapy. We believe we needed this home and all of its repairs and upgrades to make our relationship strong. Over the years and tears Sergio and I have learned to be a team. In this partnership I know that when he comes towards me with a measuring tape claiming that a project should only take a half a day to be prepared for a whole week with little sleep. Sergio knows that when I have a vision he’d better be in the car ready to head to the hardware store.
In all of the projects we have growth as a couple. We used this time to focus on joy and to work out pain. When life got tough and we needed to focus on something positive we got engrossed in DIY. When I miscarried our twins Sergio and I set to complete a project that helped us through a painful time. We stayed side by side for days working to remodel our bedroom. We started this project to expand our bedroom to make room for a crib. We had to look beyond our pain to complete it knowing that a crib would not occupy that space. The day would lead through the night and would continue to work with one another in this painful time. Assuring one another that our future looked as bright as the walls we were painting together. With every stroke of the brush we worked to heal.
As the years continue to pass we continue our therapy sessions. Some have branched off to individual projects. At times we need to create on our own leaving the other of us the opportunity to drag. Watching Sergio finish a project gives him the greatest satisfaction. Especially if it’s one that I had requested. The look on his face is priceless. I watch him as he stares with great pride. Using his mind and hands leads him to beautiful creations. I benefit from our always transforming home and in our always transforming relationship.
What are activities you put your mind and soul into? Where do you go to fight through heartache? As you look at your creations how can you reflect?
Now I shall go gather up the tools to Keep Rolling On.
Norah
A wife to a man in wheels. Sharing my life with all of the struggles in hopes to open up the highways of understanding, compassion, love, and hope.Follow me as I tread through.
<div id="fb-root"></div><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/posts/1030346827011297:0" data-width="500"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/posts/1030346827011297:0"><p>We share our stories not so you know what we've been through, but so you're not afraid to share your own. Tell us, what's your story?</p>Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/">The Wheels of Grace</a> on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thewheelsofgrace/posts/1030346827011297:0">Monday, February 22, 2016</a></blockquote></div></div>
We had this crazy idea that 2018 would be the year of video. We weren't sure how to approach, but ultimately we decided to turn a few of our old blog posts into videos. We went back through the archives and knew we had to turn The Chair into a video. We'll let the...
This week I spent some time editing our book, which is almost always an emotional endeavor. I reached back into my past when I was 13 years old, the time in my life when my parents were separated and I became pregnant. During this time so much of my life changed in...
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2017, What in the world! How are we here so quickly? They say with age years go by faster and faster. Does this mean I am getting old? Who came up with this conclusion anyways? Slow down life, just a little would ya please? While I am thinking about putting away...
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We have been working so hard on our book lately! Watch below for our newest up date! Thanks for following along with us as we complete our dream! Keep Rolling On With Us On Social Media <div id="fb-root"></div><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js,...
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We’ve reached the time of the year when we are encouraged to take stock of life and be thankful. This isn’t difficult for me, all that is required is that I open my eyes and look around. I have a wife that respects me and shows me how much she loves me. I still get...
November is always the month when we start to think about the things we are thankful for. We can’t thank you enough for taking the time to read our blog each week. We started it in order to share our story and to eventually to write a book that we hope to publish....
Living in Colorado the weather on Easter is always questionable. Some years it is a beautiful sunny day, other Easters snow covers the ground, or sometimes it is rainy and cold outside. There are years when the Easter egg hunt is done indoors. But my favorite Easter was sunny with a faux rain shower. It was the Easter I became a big sister.
I spent most of my life being an only child. I grew up quiet without siblings to torture and without siblings to torture me. I spent my days playing alone or begging my parents to play with me. I didn’t know how to play fight or wrestle. I did not ever get to black mail anyone.
By the time I hit high school my parents were barely turning 30 years old. I could not leave them all alone after I graduated. My parents needed someone to love and care for. I couldn’t be an only child forever. When they started the process of adoption I was beyond happy for them. My dream of being a sister was finally coming true and my parents dream of expanding our family was finally a reality.
At 14 years old I met my brothers for the first time. They were 4 and 5 years old. The moment I saw them I fell in love. I knew they were my little brothers and that they belonged in my family. It was far from the official adoption day, but it was fate, I could feel it in my heart.
After months of visits with the boys and mounds of paperwork, the adoption process was getting closer. Our very first weekend together as a family was Easter weekend. My brothers visited with little bags that had their names stitched on them. Inside the bags held little suits, ties, and dress shoes. They looked like little gentlemen.
We went to church the first time as a family, the five of us. We were a family that day and all the days forward.
During church my brothers got antsy since they were in a new environment and around so many strangers. Even though we were a family we were still partially strangers. We didn’t know what they liked to eat, what they hated, or their sleeping patterns. We only knew they were cute little boys who needed a forever home. In the middle of church my dad took his new sons to the car wash because he could feel them getting uncomfortable.
At the car wash one of the boys pressed the button to open the van door and water poured into the car. The boys were soaking wet. They came back to church drenched and giggled as they walked in. I turned my head to see my cute little brothers in their suits covered in water.
That is an Easter I’ll never forget, the Easter I became a big sister. I learned patience that weekend and I finally learned what it was like to become a sibling. My brothers are 10 and 11 years younger than me and I will always try and protect them. I will always be their big sister no matter how much taller than me they are. I will always think of them on Easter Sunday as the two little boys who stole my heart 12 years ago.
What’s your favorite Easter story? Share it with us!
I like to say that I’m the good looking guy in the wheelchair, a man that always has a smile on his face, and who is filled with life. I’m asked a lot why I’m always smiling and my answer is simple, I’m happy to be alive. It was given to me the day that I made peace with myself, my past, and my chair. Growing up as a teenager into a young man I always had this battle going on inside of me. The battle was all based off the desirability of being good enough, the importance of being smart enough, and the significance in my appearance. As an adolescent going through school I felt like I was invisible and the only way to be seen was to be the kid in the class that was the most disruptive. It worked, I got the attention of all of my classmates but it landed me into the principal’s office and eventually out of school. By the time I turned 18 I had dropped out of school and had been in and out of juvie. I had a reputation for being quite the trouble maker.
I liked hanging out with my friends which a lot of the world would have considered to be the wrong crowd. Maybe they were right because I always found myself in trouble with the law and in dangerous situations. I never imagined that the crowd and my actions would have ever led me into be placed in a wheelchair but this is exactly what happened.
One night hanging out with my buddies I found myself in front of a crowd of guys pounding my chest thinking that I was the Hulk and that I could take all of them on. I usually got this way when I was trying to show how tough I was in front of my friends. I wanted to show them that I wasn’t scared and that maybe I was a little bit crazy. This is the world that I created so I wouldn’t feel invisible anymore. I paid a high price that night for living the life that I had chosen. My actions cost me the use of my legs when 6 bullets travel through my body cutting my spinal cord in two. That night I went from a young man searching for his way in life to a young man that would never walk again and that would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. All because I had to be Mr. Cool in the presence of my friends.
Being in my chair now for 24 years has taught me a lot. I had to totally reinvent who I was, I couldn’t be the same Sergio that had a reputation for being a troublemaker back in the day. If I was going to survive my chair, my old ways needed to be in the past. I had to make myself vulnerable to change and I started search for something that was going to help me with the feeling of being invisible and unworthy.
Isaiah 41:13 For I am the lord your God Who takes hold of your right hand and says to you. Do not fear, I will help you.
As soon as I made the commitment to changes my eyes were open and my savior was revealed. My actions in the past had blinded me so much that I could not see that I always had somebody walking the path with me trying to guide me into the right direction but I just couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear the soft voice telling me that I was worthy and that I wasn’t invisible. Jesus helped me find strength that was buried inside of me, to keep battling on and to use my chair as a tool for his greatness. He planted a seed in me that is grown into a passion to shared with others walking or rolling. That even when the world looks dark and no light can be seen and one feels invisible or unworthy that there is hope. My goal in life is to help others find the strength inside of them, to open them open their eyes and to listen. The Lord is always there with a message for us all.
Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”
So when people ask me why I’m always smiling, I won’t hesitate to answer because I ama happy man of God and I amstrengthened by his power.
Watch your toes, my dad says to me as his wheelchair wheels towards me. Watch your toes, my dad says as he is trying to get by and I’m in his way.
Watch your toes.
I’ve heard it a millions times. I know to watch my toes, I’ve had them run over before. I was two when my dad became paralyzed, and I grew up learning that my toes always had a potential for being run over. I don’t remember him when he was walking and I find it hard to write about him being in a wheelchair. Not because it’s sad or too painful but because to me it’s normal.
When my dad comes close to running me over I lightly punch him in the arm and say,
“Hey you almost ran me over, don’t make me push you out of your chair!
He laughs and says “Get out of the way!”
We laugh and joke. We both know I would never push him out of his chair unless we were playing tackle football. And I know he doesn’t run me over on purpose but sometimes I am really just in his way.
The wheelchair is just a chair. It isn’t a hindrance. We don’t act like it doesn’t exist, we embrace it. We joke about it when we need to.
Watch your toes my dad would say when I was a little girl. He said the words out of love to protect me. I knew it was more than just watching my toes. I knew what he really meant was that he would do anything for me.
As a little girl he would tell me to watch my toes right before I climbed onto his lap. Sometimes I stood on his lap to reach something up high. When I climbed back down he would tell me to watch my toes.
Watching out for toes can be said in many situations. I have stubbed my toes on doorways, and coffee tables and it hurts far worse than wheelchair tire road rash. Wheelchairs are not the only things that can harm toes.If you live your life worrying about your toes and when they will get run over what kind of a life are you living?
I’ve had my toes stepped on by walking feet and it hurts worse. That does not stop me from hanging around people who at any moment can step on my toes. Getting my toes run over by a wheelchair does not stop me from being around people in wheelchairs, for fear of my toes being run over.
In 1992 my boyfriend, my soulmate was shot several times and left for dead. In 2016 my husband, my best friend lives and “stands” proud. Today in the noise of life we have learned to sit in silence and hear our unspoken love.
When I found out that Sergio was never going to walk again the shock ran deep. I felt an unfamiliar pain. My heart hurt for him and my breath was taken away when the words “His spinal cord has been completely severed,” rolled out of the surgeon’s mouth. Paralyzed.
At 18, Sergio was trying to get his life together to silence the call of the streets. His mistakes were finally seen as such, mistakes. He began to dream of his future and we would smile at his desires to continue community college and truly become a family. I could see a change in him, one with hope and purpose. We were going to make it but then we found out the news, he would be a prisoner to a wheelchair. Why? I couldn’t understand why he had to suffer in this matter. Why had the light finally shone through his darkness in one day be completely turned off? A light switch to his walk, off forever.
The night Sergio became paralyzed was filled with so many emotions, I couldn’t begin to explain all of them. When surrounded by his hurting family I did my best not to break down. Once I was alone I was able to fall completely apart. All by myself I was free to fight my own pain. The thought of him being a victim of such a horrible act of violence ran over and over in my mind. The thought of the condition he was left in created a nightmare of a scene. The words “left for dead” made my body tighten. Why would anyone want to take his life?
In the first few days of his long stay in the hospital I had no words to share but “I love you.” I repeated those words three words over and over again. I needed him to hear me so that he knew I was always going to love him. I didn’t pause to hear him say the words back. I didn’t need that, it didn’t matter to me. I never asked him to tell me the events of the night. I relied on family members and hospital staff to fill me in. I would listen to his answers when others asked him the tough questions. I could not allow myself to look into his eyes and ask if he understood what the doctors has just told us. Most of our time together we stayed away from conversations for doubts, concerns, and uncertainties. We never spoke of his nor my fears. Even in his desperate attempts to close me out of his upside down world we never spoke details of his legs never moving again. Our unspoken love took over and pushed love to show up in our actions. The holding of hands, the placing of checks side by side came often. The gentle rubs on the tops for heads to the many nights of just hearing each other’s heart beat. A reminder that while our hearts carry scars they still beat.
Why were we able to know each other’s thoughts without saying a word? Perhaps it was because we both already knew that no matter what we would survive this day and the days to follow. We both knew that we had already allowed our hearts to blend together as one. They were connected.
Love is unspoken at times, souls talk to each other in trauma. They hear each other in the noise of hurt. They touch in pain.
Today in the noise of life we can sit in silence and hear our unspoken love. Our hearts speak telling us to Keep Rolling On!
When you close your eyes in pain what is your heart saying? Can you hear the heart of your loved ones? Are you able to quiet your mind enough to hear though the noise?
