We get a lot of things from our parents: our eye color, our height, our compassion, even some of our interests. I get a lot from my mom, and equally as much from my dad. From my dad, I get my hot temper, my quick assertiveness to protect others, and definitely my stubbornness. While I'm sure a lot of these are hereditary, a lot of them come from the privilege I've had of growing up and being able to watch my dad in every day life, doing things that are harder for him than other people. My dad is a lot of things. Like me, he's got a quick temper, he's incredibly defensive of the people he loves, and he's the most stubborn person I know.
He's also a paraplegic, meaning that from the waist down, he has almost no feeling aside from pain, and no movement whatsoever. I've watched him for nearly 21 years now, and I have to say that I've learned quite a few universal messages from him.
1. Taking a bullet for your friend is a pretty complicated thing to do.
Yeah, this story starts out pretty intense, so hold on tight for a little bit of backstory. My dad, Buddy Dunne, lived in the Bronx in 1976, and was out for a night on the town with my Uncle Johnny, his best friend since elementary school. The two of them were both a few months over 22. Some of the details from that night are sketchy from there, they made their way to The Hitching Post, a run down bar that I don't actually think exists anymore. From there, my uncle somehow found himself in the middle of an altercation with two men next to him. My father and my uncle left the bar, my father pushing Johnny along. They heard the two men follow out behind them, and as they walked into the road, they heard a gunshot, and the sound of my father falling to the ground.
The best part about my dad's story is that even the backstory has a bit of a moral drive to it. My dad and my Uncle Johnny are still best friends to this day. My dad looked out for him that night, and got the brunt of the blow for it, but didn't regret it. He cared that much about my uncle, and still does even to this day. That kind of loyalty stuck out to me throughout my entire life growing up, and it's something I definitely get from watching my dad. His loyalty to his friends is one of the most admirable qualities my father has, and it shows in everything he does (even if it isn't always something as dramatic as taking a bullet for them).
2. The impossible definitely isn't always impossible, so try anyway!
My dad had every right to give up after being shot. What happened, medically, did not lend for a good prognosis. The bullet hit the base of his spine and shattered, with fragments of the bullet slicing through the caudia equina (the very important bundle of nerves at the base of the spine that control… well, a lot). He was taken into emergency surgery, where it became clear that the damage had been much more extensive than anyone had initially thought. When he awoke from the surgery, it was to a doctor leaning over his bed, clicking his tongue sympathetically. This is when my dad learned that he would be wheelchair-bound his whole life.
This is also when my dad told the doctors that there was no way in hell he was going to let that be the case. Nine months of extensive physical therapy later, and my dad took his first steps in a therapy pool, using crutches as his guide for the first time.
I'll be honest, this story still gives me the chills. I can picture it, my dad in a hospital bed, confused and disoriented but telling a doctor with all the conviction he has that he's going to walk again, mark their words. I get my stubbornness from my dad, like I said, but this is a whole new level. My dad told medical professionals that, by sheer willpower, he was going to disprove their prognosis, and he did. To this day, even though now he uses a motorized scooter for longer trips on vacations or to the mall, he has never once been in a wheelchair since learning how to be independent on the crutches 30 years ago.
That's the only part of the story that I grew up knowing, for a long time, probably because it was the only part of the story my dad thought was important enough to tell me. He wasn't really supposed to walk ever again, but he decided he didn't want to do that, and he figured out a way not to have to. My dad essentially did the impossible, and that's the mentality I've grown up with because of it. I hate being told I can't do something, and will usually take that as a challenge to absolutely do whatever I wasn't supposed to be doing. On top of that, I don't give up easily, and if I am giving up it's probably because I've worked through every option or every solution I can feasibly see. That's 100 percent because of my dad, and watching him do the impossible every day.
3. Resilience is a learned practice.
My dad's story isn't that simple, or that Hallmark Movie-esque, at least not right off the bat. Those nine months of physical therapy that led to him being able to walk with crutches were, as he described, some of the most difficult in his entire life. Defying the odds takes a lot of work, and it comes with a lot of uphill battles. My dad, even thirty years later, experiences chronic pain in his lower torso and upper thighs and hips region. He uses isometrics to help him control the pain, but it's chronic, which means it is never going to go away for as long as he lives. It's the price he has to pay to be able to stand eye level with his peers at work, or to dance with his wife at their wedding, or to be able to give his daughter a standing ovation at every piano recital she had.
He has every right to complain about the pain, or just give up and become sedentary his whole life. My dad has it harder than a lot of other people I know, but I never hear him complain about it. On days where his leg is bothering him more than usual, you'll never know unless you're paying attention. My dad suffers in silence, not to be a martyr but to make sure he isn't imposing on the lives of the people around him, and that's something I've definitely picked up throughout the years. More importantly, though, is his sheer resilience and tenacity. Sometimes I just sit back and remind myself that my dad did what everyone told him he couldn't, and even if it was a long, hard, uphill battle: he did it. That's something I keep close to my heart and try to remember to emulate every day. Just because something's hard doesn't mean it isn't so, so worth it.
4. Being outside the box gives you a better perspective, anyway!
We've always had to do things just a little differently to accommodate my dad's needs, and it's been this way my whole life, so naturally, I've never known anything different. It was little things, here and there: I grew up thinking it was normal for parents to scoot themselves up the stairs backwards in a sitting position (the quickest way for my dad to move without crutches), or the fact that because my dad was the one to teach me to swim, it took me a long time to remember that kicking your feet was also a part of swimming. My dad used to go golfing by sitting on a makeshift stool with a spike in it instead of legs, and when he coached my seventh and eighth grade basketball teams back to back, he did it on his motorized scooter. Because of my dad, I grew up looking at things slightly differently, and learning that doing things a little differently doesn't have to be the worst thing in the world.
This was also true for the bigger things in life, most of which we've had to do differently as well. Did you know that there is a big emergency STOP button for the Hogwarts ride at Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter park? I do, because they pressed it for my dad when his crutch slipped and he tripped on the line getting onto the ride, and the whole ride consequently malfunctioned for the rest of the day. But, when we went back to ride it the next day, we learned that there was an alternate, handicap accessible entrance through the side of the ride (as do most other rides). One good thing that comes from being outside the box is the fact that you get to learn as you go and you can have some fun along the way. Making the best of every situation you're in is something my dad's really good at, and something he definitely passed onto me.
The best part of all of this is that my dad has no shame about any of these kinds of things anymore. I'm sure he used to, but at this point he's shameless. He does what works for him and doesn't care what other people think (the perfect example of this is the time his mobile scooter died while he was alone at the mall and he used his crutches as ski poles and rolled himself to the parking lot- true story). He shows, day in and day out, that it doesn't matter if people laugh at you for doing things your own way, so long as you're having fun doing it.
5. Always be yourself! (And ALWAYS be okay with it!)
You don't realize how much you learn from your parents just by watching them, but my dad, being a little bit of a special case, has made it easier to see how much his behaviors affected mine. For example, my dad and I both hate having our picture taken. I've always hated it, because I don't like how I look in pictures, but apparently my dad only started hating having pictures taken after he got shot and started needed crutches. He'll only have his photo taken if he's sitting and you can't tell that he needs the crutches. He doesn't like having people watch him stand up, because while he has his system, it's a little bit of a process that he doesn't want people thinking of him differently while seeing.
The thing is, my dad isn't embarrassed by his crutches, or his legs. It's just a part of who he is. What he doesn't want are the countless (sometimes annoyingly forward) offers of help that come anytime a stranger sees him do anything, or the sympathetic glances he gets when he uses the crutches in public. He's not embarrassed of who he is, he just wants people to see him for who else he is: a Jets fan, security manager for ConEdison, a good father. But to me, my dad's paraplegia is a big part of his personality, too. It at least is a good vessel to show off his more core personality attributes. It gives perfect examples of his ability to overcome the odds, to achieve his goals, and to make the best of the person he is.
When I was younger and began doing school projects, my dad taught me on thing that I stand by to this day. "Caroline," he'd say to me, handing back whatever paper or assignment I'd asked him to proofread. "If your name is going on this paper, then it had better be the best you can give. If your name is going on something, anything, it's representing you, and it had better be good." This is one of the most important pieces of advice my dad has ever given me, and now having grown up a little bit I can see why it's so important to him. My dad lives in a world where everyone judges him on his appearance, before knowing his story of knowing him as a person. All he has to go by on face value is his name, and he's going to be darn certain that whatever is attached to that name represents him 100 percent. From the time I was that little, my dad made sure I had a sense of pride for who I was to go along with my sense of self, and that has made such a difference in my life.
My dad and I might not always get along, or might not always see each other eye to eye, but at the end of the day he instilled in me a set of core values that I hold true to, even to this dad. My dad's story is inspiring, but to me it's just a part of my family history and goes towards explaining who I am as a person, and as a Dunne. Long story short, I guess what I'm trying to say with this is: Thanks, Dad!
