Gone But Not Forgotten

While this blog post isn’t going to be about soccer I have decided rather to dedicate it to a girl from my school, Sierra Grill, who sadly passed away on Wednesday night. I was checking Facebook while I was getting ready for my last day of finals in the morning and right before I was about to go to bed that night I saw the devastating news. I spent a lot of that night up crying as I’m sure most of the other students and people in the community did. I never knew Sierra but her passing has affected me deeply. Just 15 years old, she took her own life because of bullying. I’ve been bullied and it is just about one of the worst things a teenager could have to go through. For me the bullying started in middle school, probably for multiple reasons including my disability. In the past few years as I have gotten old I have started to more things around me including kids at my school who also have disabilities getting bullied and other disabled people in the public being treated differently. I have come to realize that this is absolutely under no circumstances acceptable for anybody for anybody to do or have to go through. I am trying to bring more awareness to people that no matter what people say, disabled people are sometime treated differently than others and I have seen it myself before. Weather It has been either with other kids in my school, stories I’ve heard from other people or when I once had to stand behind a family, a mother, father and daughter all noticeably disabled get talked to by a store casher like a 4 year olds with no understanding (I wanted to punch that casher in the face at the time).  My point is no matter how disabled a person is whether they can talk or not, walk or not, we all have minds and feelings and we all have great lives with our own great moments. You shouldn’t judge a person if they’re in a wheelchair or use a walker or walk with a limp. In fact you shouldn’t judge anyone at all. We are all humans and all have our place in this world. I’m very glad to say that the bullying I went through all stopped in high school. I thank god for that because in my last year of middle school I began to become depressed and I wonder if things haven’t of change would I have been Sierra? But luckily for me things did change, I found a group of 5 friends and we as about close as you get. Thanks to my friends I have gained a lot of self-confidence and even recently started talking to more people about my disability. Before high school not one person outside of my family knew about my disability. My friends have also made be appreciate soccer, school, the people I love and most importantly life in itself a lot more. I am going to challenge anyone who reads this to start a conversation or just give a simple smile at disabled people when you see them in the public because all I never see is stares and trust me we’re not aliens; we don’t like to be stared at! And try to start thinking of us as perfectly normal people and there’s no need to feel bad for us, cause I never feel bad for myself ever!  J

 While Sierra had no disability she was bullied, to the point where she took her own life. I have decided to dedicate this post to her in hope that maybe someone might read this and change their mind about the way the treat someone and maybe save someone’s life or change it for the better. There are so many questions of why this? Why that?  Just Why? What could we have done to prevent this? The one thing I know is while I am devastated that this had to happen and she only got 15 short years on this earth, I am happy that she is in a better place and she does not have to suffer any more than what she did. I also continue to pray for her family.  Gone but not forgotten  <3