Love against doubters: "The heart does not look at disabilities!"
What connects the Shane Burcaw with Anna Reinald? The answer is love. But understanding that is difficult for many people. When the young couple is out in the street, Shane in a wheelchair and Anna at his side, people ask, "Is this your nurse?" or "Is the wife your sister?"
Luckily, Shane and Anna can laugh about it. Sometimes Anna answers dryly, "This is my dad," or Shane says that they only pretend to be friends. But the two are already surprised why nobody assumes that the two could be a couple.
Shane Burcaw, suffering from muscle wasting and having to sit in his wheelchair since he was three, writes about his experiences on his blog Laughing at my Nightmare - and has just published his first book.
"The idea of strangers that any woman near me should automatically be a nurse or someone from my family ignores the fact that people with disabilities can have a" normal "romantic relationship, and I have put them in quotation marks because I'm not sure am, if there is any "normal" when it comes to love. "
For a long time, Shane himself had this doubt: "For most of my young life, I did not think I deserved that kind of affection, I was afraid that my restrictions would keep women from going out with me." I was more scared that a girl could get involved with me just out of sympathy, but in college, the whole truth was revealed to me: I met really impressive people who gave me the stupid idea that love was only for people without disabilities is. "
Of course, a relationship with him is different in some ways from other men of his age. But reality showed it did not matter: Anna loves Shane, and Shane loves Anna. Point. "I can not go climbing with Anna, but I can make her laugh, we find other things and it works."
His girlfriend seems to love these very pages on him. Shane is even certain that relationships between disabled and non-disabled people can have greater depth - after all, both parts rely much more than usual on open communication and full confidence.
A friend of Shane said about him, "He has the ability to look at anything with attention." Maybe that's what makes the relationship between Shane and Anna so special. Besides - who wants to be "normal"?
UPDATE: Unfortunately, as it turns out, Shane and Anna have recently split up. Nevertheless, the story of their long love relationship despite criticism and doubt from all sides remains inspiring and makes hope. Because, sad as it is: Who starts a relationship at the beginning of 20 does not usually expect that it will last for eternity. We wish the two all the best!
