I Believe In Success.

My name is Raleigh Sumner and I believe in success. This simple statement has caused me both short moments of tremendous happiness and content, as well as long periods of bottomless frustration and anger. I believe in success because I have succeeded and have seen others succeed. I believe in success because I am a success story, the kind of story that hollywood portrays and writers type long paragraphs of inspiration about. I do not state these things as a point of bragging but rather as a simple admonishment of the truth of my life and the times that I have lived. I suppose the illustration of what I believe is necessary to give credit to my claim of believing in success.
I was born unto this earth like the other 10% of humanity, with a disorder that if it were not for the advances of modern science and medicine would have been dibilitating and an eternal blockage to any type of success I hoped to find. I was born with bilateral club feet, a bone and muscle disorder that contorts the feet and causes them to grow at an extremely odd angle to the true positioning of the legs. 60 years before my birth this disability would have been incurable. Thanks to the doctors at Shriner's Hospital I was able to recieve surgery that corrected my feet to the point that they looked normal and were functional despite massive amounts of pain. Despite all of the sappy feel good stuff that I could add about my disability I will only go far enough to say that it has been the worst and best experience of my life and remains so until this day. I am 25 and I have more pain on most days than some cancer patients have, but I have never faltered in my belief that I was given this disability for one reason and that is to use it to see the good and success in others. Having state my credentials to believe in success by illustrating my own disability and subsequent mastery of it, I would like to illustrate a couple examples of the success I have seen achieved and failed at.
The first example I would like to illustrate is that of two young children I witnessed upon one of my last medical visits to Shriner's Hospital. One was a small girl, about 4 years old who was missing both legs and the other a young boy around 13 missing his arm from the elbow down. I was sitting in the lobby of the hospital awaiting my name to be called to see a specialist and found myself starring off into my own world, dreaming of college and sports and fame as any young 18 year old man would. I was shaken from this day dream by a small girl playing with some toys on the floor. I moved my head so that I could see around a set of waiting chairs to see exactly what she was doing and the first thing that caught my attention was that she had no legs. Having lived with my own disability and feeling very thankful at that moment for my own seemingly whole appearance, I cursed myself for seeing her disability first. As I was shaking away this thought I noticed that she was playing with a volleyball on the floor, using it as a tool to try and push herself into a standing position. I watched in horror and awe as this small child attempted time and time again without success to stand like her parents could. I even heard her comment on why she couldn't stand and her parents could. I do not remember the words spoken as I found tears streaming from my face at this point, realizing that she was failing at probably the only wish she had ever had and would ever have, to be normal. As I began to raise my 300 pound frame from the chair I was sitting in to help her, my name was called to see the specialist and I found myself walking away instead of helping, consumed by her lack of success and my own failure at being a helpful hand.
As I walked away and entered the lobby where patients are taken to a private room, I noticed this one armed young man holding a basketball and joking with the doctors and nurses at the children's activity desk and as I sat down at another station to further await my seemingly endlessly busy doctor, I over heard this young man make a statement that I found miraculous. This young man bet one of the doctors that he could hit 5 three point shots in a row on the basketball court just behind the children's activity desk. As all the windows where we sat were glass and over looked this little gym, I prayed that the doctor would accept the challenge so that I could see this miracle performed. The doctor did and to my amazement this young man with one arm proceeded to hit 3 out of the 5 three pointers he had promised. As I watched I wanted to jump from my seat and cheer for him as if I was watcing the NBA finals. I was called away as he shook the doctor's hand and remember being speechless and ecstatic that someone like me could do something no one thought possible.
That was my first glimpse at the success of someone other than myself that I remember instantly recognizing as true success, a success that is earned, not one fabricated by test scores, athletic success, or educational prowess. This was success of the rarest kind, success that is earned through the highest pretenses of insurmountable failure. This was success that came from desire and determination that had foregone luck and become possible only by the push of having that which you have been told is unattainable not because of ability, but because of an act of fate. Here was a young man who had overcome fate and succeeded in the face of genetics, doctors, and religion. Here was a young man who had succeeded with his own, TRUE, body.
I met with my doctors, recieved my medical consent and release to play semi-pro football and proceeded with my mother and father back down the halls that I had entered into playing the hurry up and wait game of seeing doctors who are not paid for the wonderful services that they render. I came through two large metalic magnetic doors and proceeded to the receptionists desk to schedule another appointment and much needed physical therapy before football season started. As I stood at the desk waiting for my appointments to be catalogued and printed, I looked back towards the waiting room I had first sat in, day dreaming of my successes that I hoped would come in the future and I saw that same little girl once again. Instantly my mind swam back to her failure of standing from earlier in the morning and I found myself watching her intently as she was still trying to stand. As I watched she rolled the volleyball under her and pushed up with her arms bending her legless waist to compensate her balance. I remember my eyes sparkled in tears as she finally made the balancing act work and stood up on the two stumpy appendages she would have called legs in another life or body. There in the middle of a hospital surrounded by the dispair of parents and children alike, I wept. I wept for her failure and for her success. I wept for her fight, strength, struggle, and happiness. I, all six foot one and 300 pounds of the man I thought I was wept, simply because I could. I succeeded in sharing someone else succes, and I was taught by that someone else that failure is success simply because it pushes us to try.

I BELIEVE IN SUCCESS.

Raleigh Brooks Sumner