By Guest Blogger Kelly Falardeau
As I look back on my life, I think about why people have called me amazing. I certainly don’t feel amazing. I feel like I’m just like everyone else– living life. But another survivor friend of mine summed it up this way; she said, “Kelly, when people see someone has become a victim of a traumatic injury, they expect you to quit. We didn’t quit, we persevered. And we didn’t let our scars stop us from accomplishing our dreams, hopes and passions. We went on to get jobs, husbands, kids and whatever we wanted. We became survivors, not victims.”
Growing up, I was never allowed to quit. Quitting was not even permitted in my vocabulary. I was taught that if I wanted ANYTHING in life, that I had to go out and get it. Nothing was going to be just handed over to me, and so if I wanted something, I had better figure out how to make it happen. This taught me very early to never quit. I learned that I had just the same options as everybody else did. It didn’t matter if I had scars all over my body, I was normal in the eyes of my family, and deserved a life just as much as anyone else did.
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