In a world quick to label, they wrote their own definition of normal: two people choosing each other every day and proving that love does not ask for perfect bodies, only steady hearts. They met in their early twenties at a crowded cottage party over Labor Day weekend in 2011. They kept finding each other amid fifty people and loud music. He noticed her slight limp and asked if she was okay. On their first date, she told him she had cerebral palsy, explained what it meant for her life, and gave him an honest choice. He did not hesitate. He stayed.
From then on, they were a pair. He pushed her in the best ways. He took her traveling, taught her to drive, and showed her she could do physical things she once thought were off limits. A year in, she met his family. Most welcomed her warmly, but his father did not. At their first dinner, questions flew like a job interview. Do you cook? Do you clean? What are your plans after college? The next day, he warned his son that she would end up in a wheelchair, never finish school, never work, and that his son would become her caretaker. He even handed over an old book about cerebral palsy. She read it; her boyfriend wanted to burn it.
She decided she did not need her future father-in-law’s approval. She only owed truth and love to the man she chose. So she lived her life. She finished college. She started a business. She cooked and cleaned. When the usual way did not work, she found another. Her parents let him move in while the couple planned the future. The night before her last day of classes, he proposed. Neither had dreamed of marriage, but both knew this was the right person. Then came the car accident. She walked away, but the damage would not fully show until later. Almost a year later, she had a grand mal seizure on the highway while he was driving her to a doctor’s appointment. She woke up to paramedics and, soon after, a new word stamped on her chart: epilepsy. The hardest part was not the label, but losing her license for a year. Driving had been part of her hard-won independence. Cerebral palsy had not stopped her from driving. Epilepsy did.
They married a few months later and enjoyed a calm first year. Then the seizures returned and multiplied. Days filled with episodes. Nights were spent bracing for tomorrow. Treatments failed. Doctors ran out of ideas. Finally, she traveled overseas for testing with specialists. It was exhausting and costly in every way, but it kept her going. Through all of it, he did not waver. He held her hand in hospitals, learned her triggers, and took on the worry she tried not to show. The accident left her with a scar and him with a guilt he did not deserve. He cried when he saw it and begged forgiveness she never needed to give. She chose to see a gift in the diagnosis. Epilepsy forced a healthier life: earlier nights, no alcohol, no clubs, less stress. She felt, in time, oddly grateful.
A few years later, they bought their own place. He made sure the fire alarm’s flashing lights and noise would not trigger seizures, pushing the building to reduce both by half. He picked kitchen tools and cleaning supplies she could use easily. He wanted her to do things herself, her way. It reminded her of math. There is one answer, but many paths to get there. People called them an interabled couple, one abled and one disabled. She did not accept the label as a limit.
She did things differently, not less. Her life was normal for her, and that is what mattered. Cerebral palsy and epilepsy were pieces of her story, not the whole. Their love began in a noisy room where they felt alone together. It grew through doubt, a cold father’s warnings, a crash, a diagnosis, and long stretches of fear. It also grew through small kindnesses, shared jokes, and quiet routines. He never turned away. She never gave up.
