Today is such a happy day that Geneva keeps laughing, I keep crying, and neither of us can stop smiling. We’ve been waiting for this day for four years. Today is the day Geneva was liberated from her back brace! Look at her joy.
From the day she received a diagnosis of scoliosis, Geneva made up her mind that there was no point in fighting it. She never cared what anyone else thought or how she looked. Instead she embraced (hee) her predicament, artfully covered her brace in stickers and wore it proudly, all while showing the rest of us how a badass, fierce, and brave girl faces adversity.
With the exception of her occasional grumbles about the thick plastic brace overheating her during bike rides on 100°+ days or her lamenting her difficulty in sleeping comfortably, Geneva truly never complained. And she certainly had a right to. She wore that contraption for 23 hours a day for four years. I can’t imagine wearing it for an afternoon. To celebrate, we picked up some yummy treats, rolled down the windows and blasted the music on the drive across the Causeway. When I dropped her off at her high school, I watched her practically skip off to class, so eager to share her news with friends. I noticed how much smaller she looks without her brace and wondered if she will feel exposed or unprotected until she adjusts to this new self, as she has been walking around in “armor” for years.
Today she stands tall, figuratively and literally, with a strong backbone and great posture. She feels like Melville’s Ishmael, who proclaimed, “I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.” Today, we all rejoice with her.
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