This month, as I intentionally practice 40 acts of kindness for the 40th anniversary of Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, I find myself thinking about the “hard battles” we don’t always see —and how easily we forget them in each other.
Personally, Some days I still wake up and instinctively reach with a hand that is no longer there.
For a split second, nothing is missing.
Then reality settles in — not harshly anymore, just honestly.
This journey began in 2010 with an accident I never saw coming. Years of nerve pain, surgeries, decisions, and eventually an amputation reshaped more than my arm. It reshaped how I move through the world.
For a long time, I was angrily fixated on — researching, rebuilding, understanding every angle of what had happened, and what might be possible next.
I still adapt every day — cooking, dressing, driving, shaping clay, fastening buttons, steadying a bowl. Some movements take longer. Some require creativity. Some are still painful and frustrate me.
But there is also something steady underneath it all.
Not the version of me from before.
Not a future upgraded version.
Just this one.
That steady presence I’ve found within myself is what I hope to see more of in the world. We live in a world plagued with corruption, with selfishness, with cruelty and pain. We need virtue more than ever. We need heroes. We need those who stand up for the common good–no matter the circumstances.
In a world that feels rushed and fractured, I’ve learned that healing doesn’t respond to force. It responds to attention. To breath. To showing up inside the life that is actually in front of you.
Limitation has not erased possibility.
It has taught me to notice small victories.
To respect my body.
To be patient with systems that move slower than they should.
And to find meaning in building something — even slowly — with what remains.
The world is constantly testing us. We set out to do something and it’s more trying than we expect. We face resistance. We get criticized. We run out of options. We experience technical difficulties. What will we do?
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Marcus Aurelius, Mediations
P.S. Pictured here is Mosha. Like me, her life was reshaped by an accident she didn’t see coming. But she didn’t find her way back alone. It took a community—engineers, caretakers, and advocates—refusing to let an impediment be the end of her story. Her joy today is a testament to what happens when we choose to do the right thing for one another. Limitation hasn’t erased her possibility, because support made a new way possible.
science 🖤 art 🖤 transhumeral 