My sister, my inspiration.

I'm back from London, where the Dutchman and I, along with a ragtag group of friends, were supporting my sister at the Paralympics! I first wrote about disabilities last year, when I helped her in Belfast. Earlier this year I helped her in Porto, and these events and experiences are always helping me to think about things in a new way.

These posters caught my eye -- aren't they just lovely? All kinds of people (and animals!) are represented without resorting to stereotypes or caricatures.

But I digress. 

My sister is awesome and she has been my inspiration for... pretty much my whole life. In primary school, she fell down twice in school and I was awed that she wasn't put off from going to school and manoeuvring the absolutely-not-step-free school in a wheelchair. In secondary school, I was awed by her abilities in math and science.

In junior college, I never caught up to the amount of community service and social work she was doing (but I tried!). In university, I was awed by how she smoothly caught up with missed modules after spending an entire semester in hospital, and still got a decent GPA (I got the same GPA without the hospital stay, lol).

And then, she did something that I can't do with my two arms and two legs: she goes and represents Singapore at the Paralympics! First time Singapore has a Boccia athlete for the Paralympics, and the first Paralympics for her.

Of course she's happy.

Not a surname, but still correct.

I was bummed that I couldn't come with her to help with caregiving, but I found my niche as a cheerleader. Thank you RGS (my single-sex secondary school), for all those years you taught us all to cheer with our diaphragm with voices lower than the boys, even. It was put to good use because one boccia match lasts more than an hour. Six balls per end, and four ends in total, we gave her all we had!

We watched her play six matches: three to reach the quarter-finals which she lost in a tie-breaker to an athlete ranked No. 2 in the world, and then she played two more matches to finish 7th.

She put up an awesome fight, and I'm so proud of her I could burst. Love you, Kakak!


Do you think she's awesome, and an example for Muslimahs, wheelchair-users and anyone in general?
Then like her official Facebook page here!