Precious In Our Sight    

By TAD BARTIMUS

All of us have friends we don't see very often but hold close to us, think about, consider dear even if we only exchange hurried Christmas cards and a couple of phone calls a year.

Every summer, if I'm lucky, I get to hug one of these friends and we cram 365 days worth of anecdotes and affection into three.

"So," I ask, half dreading the answer, "how goes it?"

"Great! Just great!" she says, then a slight shadow passes across her face. "Except the baby has to have two more operations."

The "baby" is four years old now, a beloved grandchild. Alice isn't her real name, but that doesn't matter. This is a proud family that disdains special attention and would never want this child they adore to be singled out as anything less than perfect. 

A month before Alice was born her parents-to-be learned she would have medical problems. The extent was unknown. When she arrived Alice was welcomed with all the love any baby could ever hope for, then whisked into surgery for the first of many operations. One of them involved cracking and re-arranging parts of her skull, leaving a temple-to-temple scar just above her hairline. She barely cried; after the staples were out she grinned at the doctor. The only dry eyes in the room were hers.

Alice's physical challenges also include the onset of blindness, kidney malfunction, speech and walking difficulties, seizures and heightened susceptibility to infection.

But Alice doesn't know she's got all these strikes against her. She throws out her arms to the world and embraces anything at hand: beloved dogs, favorite people, strangers. She is all heart, and in her soft embrace we find our own humility. 

From the beginning, her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins have looked upon Alice as a blessing. Theirs is a united front. Don't you dare feel sorry for Alice! Anyone who does is exiled. 

"She's a go-getter," says her fiercely determined mother. "You can't stop her!"

Of the two upcoming surgeries, the attitude is: " It's time to move ahead and take care of these things. She heals quickly. She'll be home before you know it."

Never a syllable of regret about the realities of Alice's life and, by extension, the enormous adjustments required of her parents and extended family to protect and care for her. Mom and Dad are young and athletic, hardworking, middle class. They deeply love each other and their only child; she is precious in their sight.

"It's the attitude you have that makes all the difference," says Theresa Uchytil, a 24-year-old computer executive from Urbandale, Iowa. Born without a left hand, this talented beauty will represent her state as Miss Iowa Oct. 14 in the Miss America Pageant. She earned her walk down the Atlantic City runway in part because of her flawless baton-twirling. "I owe a lot of my success to the fact that my parents always supported me. When I wanted to be a baton twirler nobody asked me if I could do it. My only concern was could I be the best."

"When I perform at the Miss America pageant I'm twirling for millions of other people with disabilities," she says. "I believe that everything happens for a reason; I'm going to make a difference some day."

Ms. Uchytil said she can't remember "when I realized I was not like everybody else," but she does remember falling from the monkey bars on the grade school playground when her prosthesis came off "and some of the kids laughed and yelled, 'Captain Hook, Captain Hook!'" 

"I also remember getting back on those monkey bars and going across it using my hand and my other elbow. The kids stopped laughing."

Ms. Uchytil believes the Americans with Disabilities law, in effect since 1990, is a great inspiration to anyone who is physically and mentally challenged because "it levels the playing field." 

"I was never treated differently from my four sisters," she says. "We had a rule in our house – once you start something, you just don't quit. No exceptions." 

Alice's family is like that, too. When she runs and plays she is carrying on traditions instilled in her by her parents and grandparents: try your best and never give up. There are more challenges ahead for Alice, as there are for any person with disabilities. But already, in her short, brave life, she's made a difference in all of ours. 

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