Oscar Berry: Not Glass

Oscar Rouvine Berry isn’t going to let nerve disease get in his way.

In seventh and eighth grade, I underwent three reconstructive surgeries, spent two years bound to a wheelchair, and attended a one-on-one school. I hated going outside. I felt like a toad in a cage. Small, ugly, on display. I hid behind textbooks, hopping through chapters. Living beyond my physical challenges, I immersed myself in academia. I sought new ways to continue making and keeping my world as big as possible.

Today my hands gave up. I am a soldier at war with the inevitable. A degenerative disease that ravishes my body. I see my reflection in the shards of glass. Tears decorate my face as I contemplate my reality: Charcot Marie Tooth Disease.

I was tired of hiding. My disease was not limited to my physical decline. It did more than damage my peripheral nerves and weaken my muscles. It isolated me. It broke me.

Upon my reintroduction to the mainstream in high school, I took the most rigorous classes available to me. Quickly, however, academic achievement became a fading painkiller. I wanted more. I needed more.

The summer before my junior year of high school, I applied for a job as a server and busser. I wanted to test my physical challenges in the most rigorous environment.

Now 17, I am standing in a puddle of glass. It was such a short walk to the dishwasher. I am drowning in fear. “Once, okay. But twice? Surely, I am going to get fired.”

Picking up the shards, I ask myself: “and what if I am?” This will not stop me from knocking on the door of every restaurant in San Francisco, looking for the next job.

I can break, but I am not glass. I will not stay broken. I am in control of that part of my story.

With a Perspective, I’m Oscar Rouvine Berry.

Oscar Berry is a senior in high school. He is an aspiring statistician and columnist.