At one point we went to see my pediatric doctor. He told us in no uncertain terms that if I had not already walked — at 7 years old — that I never would. My doctor wasn’t entirely wrong to think this; every time I tried to stand on my own two feet, I would almost instantly fall to the ground. My doctor’s prognosis was informed by what is commonly called the “medical model” of disability, which among other things distills disability down to an individual’s body. It is highly quantitative, using empirical data about the body to arrive at an account of a particular disability. Needless to say, my stats weren’t stellar.

My grandmother was enraged by this visit, and as we left the office, she looked me straight in the eyes and told me something that has become my personal mantra ever since: “Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.” Our determination was reignited. Each day after that, my grandmother would put me through exercises to improve my mobility. She would put two chairs inches apart from each other and have me try to walk from one chair to the other. I failed repeatedly to take a single step. We would engage in this exercise tirelessly and though it felt like it took eons, I was eventually able to take a single step without falling to the ground. Soon one step became two, two steps became three, and then I made it from one chair to the other.

My training soon involved greater distances between chairs. And I improved. Even though my form when I walked wasn’t “normal,” I was defying the expectations of my doctor and by extension, the medical model of disability and its judgment of my body’s capabilities. I had done the seemingly impossible.

On one day, I found that everything just clicked for my body. I began walking even more. Given the inability of my muscles to maintain an erect posture I had to keep going forward or risk falling. When I was on the move, it was always from one piece of furniture to another so I could brace myself. The feeling of such movement, movement that my body had supposedly denied me, was exhilarating. No matter the so-called deficiencies of my movements, they were mine.

My grandmother, my sister and the rest of the people who surrounded me had tears in their eyes that day. Those whose ableism has religious undertones might say that my breakthrough was a gift from God. That may well be true, for who am I as a mere man to shun such an idea from the world of possibility?