I think my experience as a child was a very traumatic one, but I also think that it helped me to become the caring individual I am today.  I remember my early years of life being full of hard decisions and heartache and I don't think any child should have to deal with that much at such a young age.  I feel like I was cheated out of being young and I had to grow up too fast, but I do believe the experiences I had helped me to realize that you have to make the best out of any situation and realize everything happens for a reason.
I remember being in 5h grade and being one of the most popular kids in the school.  I played many sports including Football, baseball, and basketball and I was thought of as being very athletic.  I was very likeable and got along with everyone.  It was that summer of 1990 that I had stared death in the eye and almost did not live to see the next day.  I was riding a 4 wheel quad runner and swerved going over a 100 foot cliff.  I had extreme braid damage and was in coma for 7 days.  My family was devastated and did not know if I would recover, or how long it would take for me to wake up.  When I awoke, I did not know who I was, who my family was, and I had no recollection of what had happened.  I had complete amnesia of the months before.  The first day I remember after the accident was the first day of my rehabilitation when I was learning how to walk again, 3 months after the accident.  I did not know why I was there and what had happened until my family had explained it all to me.
I was still very young and still very sick and still had a hard time relating what had happened to me, so I could not quite fathom the road to recovery ahead of me.  It seemed hopeless for my family that I would get better but they still kept up high spirits.  This was when my spirit and will to live shined through.  I wanted to get better and back to my regular life so I fought back.  I worked harder than I ever did before, and everyone was astounded at my rate of recovery.  After 2 years of rehab I was almost back to normal, but I had another obstacle to overcome.  These obstacles were the kids at school.  They didn't know how to deal with what had happened to me so they pushed me away.  No one would talk to me just because I was a
little different in their eyes.  I was no different from anyone else but they seemed to see otherwise.  I could not play sports anymore because of the injury so I had to take up another hobby to occupy my time.  That was magic.  I began to love the thrill of the looks of amazement I got from my family whenever I did a trick.  I wanted to share it with the kids at school, but to my surprise they pushed me away even more.  They seen my talent as something very different so they felt I was odd.  I was not odd; I just wanted to share something I liked with them, that's all.
After a few years, I decided to use my talent outside the boundaries I was used to and started to do magic shows for children's functions.  I was doing something I liked, and was making people happy doing it in the process.  This was a grand reward and I cannot tell you how rewarding it was to me to share my gift with people that appreciated it.
I noticed through my experiences that kids tend to not like something that is unusual to them.  That is where I come in.  I influence kids to love the gifts God has given them and to embrace them.  I wish them to use them whenever possible.  My goal now is to help kids make their way through times that I know are tough for them, and that is growing up.  I want to urge them not to think themselves different for these great gifts, but special because they were chosen to have them.  They need to learn that life is precious and we must enjoy every moment we have on this earth.
Kids need constant reassurance that they are all special and we are just the right people to tell them that.  Believe me, I have been working with kids for close to I I years now and the best gift you could ever give them is to make them feel special.  I have learned that for kids to excel in whatever they want to do, they need to be able to stand on both feet.  I know that sometimes to be able to that you need to have a shoulder to lean on.  I believe very strongly in saints and we have the ability to be saints in our own reality.  We have that ability to change someone's life and all it takes is just three simple words, "You are special."