• I believe that you are born certain way. In a way that still has me baffled. There are things the people may not understand. Until, years later. I came to see this thirteen years ago, when my sister was born. My sister was born with a birth defect that will forever change our family.
    Thirteen years ago my sister was born with a cleft palate, a hole in the roof of her mouth. This was something no one expected. I for one did not see this coming. Well when you are six you don’t understand much. I had no idea how hard that her life was going to be. Nor did I see how hard that this was going to be for my Mother.
    For someone so small, she had to go through lots of surgeries, to correct her hearing, and her mouth. But the surgery that changed me was the one she had when she was one years old. I had no clue to what was going on. After school, my godmother picked me up. We drove in silence, I think to the hospital.
    What I remember is that once I was in her hospital room, I became scared, frightened. What I saw that day will forever be with me. Her tong was placed on the outside of her mouth. It was a sight that I never wanted to see, but it had to be that way. Her arms, where in these teddy bear things. So that she could not place her hands into her mouth.
    That was her first surgery. That was followed by surgeries for tubes that need to be placed into her ears. She had more done on her mouth. Her teeth were coming in wrong when she was teething, and on tooth never came in. She has to wear braces now to straighten her teeth. She had a few teeth removed, because everything was jammed in there.
    She had to have Speech therapy, to help her speak. She still say something wrong but less words then before. Emily would always get picked on, because she could not talk right. Our own father and our stepmother would tell her to ‘use you big girl talk.’ The truth was that she was talking like a big girl. I would always get upset with my father, I still hate him for the why he treated my sister like that. It was not her fault that she talked funny.
    She is a miracle, because she has gone through more pain than I had gone through in my 19 years on this Earth. Mind you my sister is now thirteen, and is the special Ed version of Eighth grade. Some of her classed are normal. I am proud of my sister for overcoming this hell.