Hi! My name's Eileen Grubba.
There was a time when I was a child and I had just
gotten out of a wheelchair.
I had a spinal cord injury, and I still walked pretty poorly and had bladder
trouble, and i remember in school that on a regular basis the kids were pretty
cruel...really cruel and in school one day they were messing with me the whole day
and then on the playground when we got recess...
they kept trying to knock me over with the kickball, and they thought that was fun...
and that day I fought back and I got really mad and defended myself, and then
I got in trouble by the teacher in front of everyone.
for my response to it, so that day when I got in the car my mom picked me up from
school. I was seven years old.
The paralysis happened when I was just under five years old, so I'd been dealing with
it for a little bit, and my mother got in the car, and I looked at her and I just
burst out crying, and I screamed at her and told her that I wish you would have let me die.
Seven years old. When I saw my mother's face, and her response to that, and the
tears go down her face...
I knew how much I hurt her by saying that, but that's how I felt as a
seven-year-old, not because of the physical challenges I was going through,
but because of the way people were treating me for a situation that was out
of my control.
I already spent two years fighting for my life and fighting to get back out of
a wheelchair, which was supposed to have been impossible, and I was getting beat up at school
and picked on because of how poorly I walked and my bladder problems, and to top it off,
to have a teacher be cruel on top of it...
but...that day, my mom taught me something really important.
Through here tears, with so much love in her heart, she looked at me and she said,
"young lady, you need to learn to count your blessings."
And, of course, I challenged her on that, but cut to years later and a lifetime later.
That was the only time i ever thought that...because I went on, and I knew my mom
loved me and my father loved me, and I carried on. She taught me that the
kids were cruel because I was special.
That's what she taught me, and that's what I believed.
So I went back into school with my head held high, and I tried again and I tried
again and I tried again.
So. years later I did everything I ever wanted to do.
I figured if I could get through that time in my life, I can get through anything.
So here I am today. I'm a lot older than 7. (laughs)
I've done almost everything I ever wanted to do.
I won an art scholarship because of all the years in a wheelchair where I
couldn't go out and play with everybody else.
I learned how to create. I went to college on art scholarship.
I became an actor. I worked on a lot of major TV shows...lots of em! I've had a lot
of people tell me you won't work in this industry because you walk with a limp.
I've had all kinds of people tell me all kinds of negatives, but guess what? I'm
the one who's standing here telling you today my story, and i'm just wanting to
share with you that sometimes it's hard, and I get it.
I've lived through all the pain. I've had a lot of surgery since I've had a lot of physical pain...
but life really is worth living, and you can have your dreams, and you can go for
them with everything you got.
You just need to be around the kind of people that support you in that, and the
biggest lesson I learned was to get rid of the people who aren't supporting you in it.
There are going to be people who don't get it, and then aren't supportive and
pick on you and give you a hard time, but they are certainly not worth ending your
life over.
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