{"id":724,"date":"2015-09-21T22:58:03","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T02:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/?p=724"},"modified":"2015-09-21T22:58:03","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T02:58:03","slug":"our-brave-cheerleader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/our-brave-cheerleader\/","title":{"rendered":"Our brave cheerleader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn my dreams, I can walk.\u201d Those were Callie\u2019s words to Nathan recently as he was getting her out of bed to start the day.<\/p>\n

When kids have asked Callie why she can\u2019t walk, she\u2019s always said, \u201cBecause it\u2019s the way I\u2019m made.\u201d That\u2019s now been replaced with, \u201cBecause it\u2019s the way I\u2019m made\u2026\u2026and I don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Callie was diagnosed with SMA 5 years ago, Nathan and I were determined to do everything within our power to give her as normal a life as possible. We did for a while, but it\u2019s gradually gotten harder to do. We knew she would one day gain the sad realization of how physically limited she is. We knew this disease would destroy her body and eventually take her life. What we didn\u2019t know, and had come to fear in recent months, was that this disease might also destroy her spirit.<\/p>\n

\"Callie<\/a>But this month, Callie told us otherwise. For her entire life, she\u2019s watched all her brothers play soccer and flag football for a local Upward sports league. She\u2019s always watched the cheerleaders intently and announced to us that this year, she wanted to be one. If anyone other than Callie had suggested this idea, we would\u2019ve emphatically said no. We wouldn\u2019t want her facing the sadness of not being able to do the things the other girls can do. We wouldn\u2019t want her having to answer the constant questions that come from curious children — \u201cHow can you cheerlead if you can\u2019t walk?\u201d, \u201cHow do you take a shower?\u201d, \u201cHow do you go up and down stairs?\u201d, \u201cCan you go to school?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Callie\u2019s brave. She\u2019s not like us. She\u2019s gone to her practices and had her first game this past Saturday. She doesn\u2019t care that she\u2019s too weak to lift her arms in the air, much less her pom-poms, or that she can\u2019t move her legs, or that she\u2019s always a few motions behind the other girls.<\/p>\n

When we got to the field Saturday, Callie looked at us and said, \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for this my whole life!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn my dreams, I can walk.\u201d Those were Callie\u2019s words to Nathan recently as he was getting her out of bed to start the day. When kids have asked Callie why she can\u2019t walk, she\u2019s always said, \u201cBecause it\u2019s the way I\u2019m made.\u201d That\u2019s now been replaced with, \u201cBecause it\u2019s the way I\u2019m made\u2026\u2026and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calliegolden.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}