Saga The Disabilities Challenge Entries

Here you will find entries for The Disabilities Challenge.

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[b]The Challenge[/b]

Write a fic, any length, any form, any board, any character, that deals with disabled people ?human or non-human. Their disabilities can be birth defects, or they can be gained later in life after an accident. The disabilities can also be either physical or mental. If they are mentally disabled please do not called them ?retarded? or any other harmful words associated with those who are mentally handicapped.

The characters can be either OC or canon ? you could write a fic about Padmé being severely harmed and breaking her spinal cord, becoming paralyzed.

The disabilities have to be very severe if they are physical ? examples are total blindness, total deafness, loss of most of the senses, parallelization etc. You can use spina biffida and cerebral palsy of examples of birth defects.

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A very important note: the challenge has now changed into a group of challenges that I will be issuing from time to time. The second challenge is now up. Please see the challenge thread in Resource for more details. :)

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[b][u]The Strongest One[/b][/u]

by Idrelle_Miocovani

***

The Galaxy and I were at war. It was a personal war over a way of seeing others. I saw rightly, and still do, I [i]know[/i] it; they did not.

I loved my sister. She lived in a world of bliss. She had no choice of which world she could live in when she was born disabled. She was born into the world of happy bliss, where everything, no matter how horrid, seemed blessed to her eyes.

I remember the day she came into my life and she was lucky to have lived through her first day in this world. My father never wanted her when he saw how seriously challenged she would become. He wanted to shoot his daughter. My father was a terrible man. He was a mad man; he could never learn to accept anyone who was different, no matter how special they were. He could never see past the differences, the oddities that his daughter bore. He wanted her out, he wanted her to go away; he didn?t want to admit that he had fathered such a poor, helpless child who would depend on everyone around her to survive.

We soon learned that caring for her would bring devastation upon us. The rest of the Galaxy thought the same way my father did. They could not bear to see such a thing. They could not bear to admit that she was even human.

But she was human. It wasn?t her fault that she couldn?t talk properly; it wasn?t her fault that her legs never grew. It wasn?t her fault that she had to be attached to a breathing apparatus so she would survive. It wasn?t her fault that she couldn?t even feed herself.

She had been born that way and no one except my mother and I could accept it. It was then that I discovered that the world is a harsh place, an unforgiving place. The people choose to see things one way and nothing, not even the mystical Force the Jedi talked about, can change their point of view.

Somehow, through all the jeering and persecution, my mother and I survived to bring her up.

Sometimes I was envious of my sister. She would stare out at the world with those large, blue eyes of hers, happily smiling at everything. She would listen to the HoloNet news about the Clone Wars and smile her happy smile.

It wasn?t that she didn?t care about the crisis the Galaxy was in. It was because she lived in a world of bliss that shone light on everything. Her mind was uncluttered by the darkness the rest of us felt; her disabilities took that away from her. She believed that the world was a wonderful place filled with life and abundant with the love my mother and I had shone her. Even war couldn?t take that away from her Galaxy. I envied her for her outlook on life. I wanted to share her happiness.

After the Clone Wars? the darkest times began. Palpatine?s rule was [i]terrible.[/i] He hated anything out of the ordinary and when he found something he loathed, he exterminated.

 

That is a lovely story. I'm happy that you posted a challenge thread about disabilities. I hopes there will be great stories like yours. I like how it show the different point of views and how people can accept or reject different people. It just shows me that this galaxy isn't different compared to ours.

Talking about disabilities, I am deaf, and I'm been like that since my birth. Any Star Wars fans with disabilities?

 

That was wonderful Idrelle. I have heard of fathers/parents who reacted pretty much like that. Good idea for a challenge too.

 

That was nice

 

Standing ovation.

That was beautiful Idrelle.

You've set the tone for this challenge and I hope many rise to the occassion.

 

Crazydan: Thanks!

I like how it show the different point of views and how people can accept or reject different people. It just shows me that this galaxy isn't different compared to ours.

Yes, I was almost in tears when writing the rejection because I was reminded quite clearly of the incident that caused me to start working with disabled children: a pre-teen in a wheelchair was set on fire and later died in hospital. It was very tragic and I wanted to do something to prove that they aren't really that different from us. That's when I started working (with my sister) with a girl who's three years older than me -- she has a very severe form of spina bifida.

Lovely-in-Orange: Thanks!

Krayus_Korianis: Thank you.

Lola64: Thanks! I'll be very happy to see some more people post entries and I can't wait to see yours!

Ladynaye: Thanks!

 

Wonderful.

 

Any more stories to add to this challenge?

 

Crazydan, so far there are many people who have been working on entries and there are quite a few submissions, but they are in either Before or Beyond the Saga. If you like, you can visit the main Disabilities Challenge thread in Resource for links to the other response threads.

 

Title: The Gift of Today
Author: VaderLVR64
Characters: Sabé
Summary: Devastating news changes two lives.
Notes: When my son was first diagnosed, I read a wonderful book that had a quote by Beverly Sills in it. She is the mother of a handicapped child, and she wrote of progressing from ?Why me?? to ?Why my child?? That is the central journey in the parent of a handicapped child. We learn to let go of our own pain, and make way for our child?s pain and frustrations. We give up our own pain until those quiet moments when we are alone and no one can see us cry...



The Gift of Today

I did not hear the words the medic said. I heard a strange rush of sound, as if I approached a raging waterfall. But the roar did not separate itself into discernable sounds, so I merely gaped at him, a blessed numbness settling deep into my bones.

I nodded obediently when he asked me if I understood what I had just been told.

Of course I understood.

How does one not understand that life will forever be marked by this moment, two distinct periods that come before and after?

I understood.

Acceptance was another issue entirely. I understood, but I did not accept. My mind would not wrap itself around the idea that the little boy I loved so much, who looked so bright and happy, was going to die.

We all die.

I knew this.

But my baby was dying quickly, right before my eyes.

I had known power in my life. I had served royalty and political leaders. I had been entrusted with secrets that, if revealed, would have condemned millions.

And I had never wavered, never been tempted to betray that trust.

But I would have given all of it up, thrown myself into the gutters of Coruscant if I could have changed one little bit of my son?s genetic legacy.

That little drunken wobble that had seemed so funny at first had been a warning. It had been the first little sign that prompted me to look for answers and I had found them.

There was no question of the veracity of the diagnosis, for nothing less than the best would do for the handmaiden of our beloved late Queen Amidala. His eyes were full of pity and grief when he passed his sentence. Death. No appeal, no pardon.

How I longed for the days of ignorant bliss when I did not truly know what pain was!

With those simple words, the medic had taken the future I had once envisioned and twisted it, warped it beyond recognition into something that was so utterly alien to me that I could not even identify the seed of my old hopes in that future.

Gone.

All of it gone, ripped to pieces and the tiny remnants cast to the winds.

I stared at what was left.

It seemed a pitiful little dream.

A dream of days that could be stretched to weeks and then to months, and perhaps with great luck and much prayer, they might be extended to years.

A few short years to love my boy and feel him love me back.

If I was lucky, if he was strong, we would be granted a handful of years to experience a lifetime.

Self-pity rose up in me, choking me with its bitterness.

Anger.

Hot and swift the fury came, I raged against the deadly thing that had lived inside of me all my life, unknown, unimagined ? simply waiting to strike out at the child to whom I had given this fatal gift. I had given him life, and now it seemed I had bestowed upon him death as well.

Life and death. Anger and pity.

Wrath ? a desire to strike the sympathetic look off the medic?s face and let my pain become his own for a brief moment.

Then my little boy smiled and brushed away the single tear that had escaped me. He stared at it, fascinated by the cool drop on the tip of his finger.

?Why sad?? he asked, his blue eyes earnest and curious.

?Because-? I stopped. What could I tell him? Should I tell him that I was sad because I would watch him get weaker and weaker, one day unable to walk. And then he would be unable to sit, and the day would come when he would not be able to swallow the food I would so tenderly feed him, bite by bite.

His body will soon cease to obey his

 

Idrelle_Miocavani

Palpatine killed my sister. He killed her because he couldn?t learn to accept ? just like my father. He couldn?t accept her so he eliminated her.

This is horrific--mainly because this has happened in real life more times that I would like to think about. Great work!

VaderLVR:
His eyes were full of pity and grief when he passed his sentence. Death. No appeal, no pardon.

This is so raw--I can feel her sorrow.

?I will try,? I promised us both.

This is just as heartbreaking bc it shows how a mother has to put aside her own grief for the sake of her child, as you said in your Notes. Very moving.

 

Idrelle:

She could live with her disabilities; see through her pain and suffering to see the light of a brighter world.

Yes. Its the rest of the world that does not.

Sad, painful and beautiful story, Idrelle!



VaderLVR:

I hardly know what superlatives to use.

Anakins_Force is right, the pain and sorrow here are raw. I've no doubt about how difficult this was for you to write. As always, you've done a superb job!

Brava, brava!

oldj

 

VaderLVR64: I just don't know what to say.

As I sit here, crying at my desk, yes crying, I can only imagine how hard this was to write.

I found it so moving, so powerful.

I had given this fatal gift. I had given him life, and now it seemed I had bestowed upon him death as well.

Sad but so true. So many mothers, no matter how many people say it's really no one's fault, believe they are the ones that caused it.

 

For once, I am speechless.

VL, this is the wonderful, beautiful, and powerful. It must have been terrible to write as it deals with such raw pain. Congratulations for being able to write this.

 

VaderLVR- Tay-Sachs? Sounds like Tay-sachs to me. If it isn't, would you please inform me what it is?

That was a lovely, sad piece. *blows nose*

 

It is Ataxia-Telangiectasia. A very rare genetic disorder, it is recessive so both parents need to contribute the gene.

 

Oh, my. Both of those were so lovely and so tragic. Thank you both.

 

Okay. In the way you had described it it sounded a little like Tay-Sachs.