Amazing Powers of Jen Bricker.Pdf
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Nonfiction NARRATIVE NONFICTION reads like fiction but it’s all true Jen Bricker THE AMAZING OF JEN BRICKER An incredible story of love, grit, and dreaming big. BY KRISTIN LEWIS And so Jen came into the world Think about the meaning of the title. AS YOU READ utterly alone: without parents, without even a name. en Bricker hangs 30 feet above the ground, Special-needs children can be cocooned in red fabric suspended from the particularly vulnerable; they are ceiling. The audience gasps as she rolls out statistically harder to place for adoption. Today in the U.S., more of the fabric, unfurling her body like a flag, than 110,000 special-needs kids are her long dark hair tumbling down behind waiting for permanent homes. her in a wave. She moves with the grace of a ballerina Jen’s future seemed uncertain J at best. and the strength of a linebacker. “She Was Ours” Jen is an aerialist, an acrobat Alone in the World Less than 100 miles from Salem, who performs daring feats high in Jen was born in 1987 in Salem, in the small town of Hardinville, the air. She’s appeared on stages Illinois. With her big brown eyes and Illinois, lived Gerald and Sharon from Malaysia to Germany. In the thick black hair, she was adorable. Bricker and their three sons. The country of Qatar, she made a grand But something was different about Bricker home was a happy one. Still, entrance dangling from a hot-air her. Because of a genetic defect, her Gerald and Sharon felt something balloon. While on tour with Britney legs never formed. Her biological was missing from their lives. Spears, she performed a high-flying father decided he couldn’t handle They had always wanted a trampoline act. Jen’s career is raising a child with a disability. little girl but couldn’t have more impressive by any measure, but it is He insisted on leaving Jen at the children. So they decided to adopt all the more extraordinary because hospital, forbidding her mother from one. A friend told them Jen was born without legs. even seeing her. about an infant, born GARY HANNA GARY JOSE MANDOJANAJOSE 4 SCHOLASTIC SCOPE • FEBRUARY 2017 SCOPE.SCHOLASTIC.COM • FEBRUARY 2017 5 Jen steals the show in her without legs, who had been aerial act. Bottom: Jen as limits a person’s activities. But Jen That may have seemed unlikely, admire Dominique. Yet she felt like placed in a foster home not a child on the trampoline says she’s fortunate. Growing up, but the Brickers knew their more than a fan obsessed with a with her brother. too far away. The Brickers she felt she could do anything she daughter would continue to defy famous athlete. Jen was struck by set out to meet her. put her mind to—whether it was expectations. the similarities between herself and “She was this tiny itty playing on the volleyball team or her idol. They were both gymnasts, bitty thing,” Sharon recalls. stealing the ball on the basketball A Lot of Attention they were both of Romanian “She was so beautiful.” court. Jen’s success garnered her a lot descent, they both had big eyes, “She just looked up and Jen’s positive outlook was of attention. Articles were written tan skin, and long dark hair. Even smiled at us, and she was instilled in her from a young age. about her. News crews came to her Jen’s mom had to admit that her ours,” Gerald says. “Can’t” was never part of her school to film her. She was even daughter and Dominique shared an Though there wasn’t a vocabulary. In the Bricker house, flown to New York City to be on a uncanny resemblance. doubt in their minds that the word was simply not allowed. popular talk show. It turns out, that resemblance Jen was their daughter, “We were always telling her, ‘You At the time, she found the was not a coincidence. the Brickers wanted to can do anything you want to do,’” attention bewildering. She Seeing Dominique’s name on understand what kind of Gerald says. “We just had to figure remembers thinking, “This is the TV screen during the Olympics, medical care she would it out and off she’d go.” dumb. I am not anything special. Sharon suddenly remembered need. They consulted with Perhaps it’s not surprising that Why am I an inspiration to you?” something: the name of Jen’s doctors, who painted a Jen was something of a prodigy in Like many kids in middle school, biological family. The name had bleak picture of what Jen’s sports. In elementary school, she Jen sometimes longed to blend in. mistakenly been included in Jen’s tktktktkt Usam, si life would be like. One could speed around the softball But as she learned, when you don’t hospital records. unt. Vel ea sitias doctor even suggested diamond on her hands. She have legs, anywhere you go, people That name was Moceanu. maximped quaspiendi Gerald and Sharon carry Jen snowboarded and fished and rode are going to notice you. It seemed impossible—and sunt ationsed maios around in a bucket. horses. She even taught herself to yet it made perfect sense. Jen and doluptius expla The Brickers didn’t come roller-skate on her hands. It Seemed Impossible Dominique were sisters. away with a clear idea of But gymnastics was where Jen During the 1996 Olympic what exactly Jen would really shone. She started training at Games in Atlanta, Georgia, Jen, Now What? need, but they were determined that does have to be careful a nearby gym when she was 7. She who was 8 at the time, sat glued Gerald and Sharon decided to whatever it was, they would find a where she “steps,” would race down the mat on her to the television, watching rapt as wait until Jen was 16 to tell her way to provide it. They knew Jen avoiding bugs, dog hands, launch herself onto the vault, Dominique Moceanu tumbled her about Dominique. When they was destined for a lot more than life poop, and any other then rocket into the air, flipping way to a gold medal. Long after the revealed the truth, Jen felt like she in a bucket. hazards lurking on the with power and ease. When Jen was Olympics ended, Jen continued to was living in a dream. ground. (She uses a 11, she took home gold at the state “The girl I idolized, the girl Jen and her adoptive Agile and Fearless wheelchair when she gymnastics championship, beating parents, Gerald and Sharon I watched on TV . she’s my As it turned out, Jen was a doesn’t want to get out the able-bodied gymnasts. biological sister?” Jen thought. natural athlete—agile and fearless. dirty.) Not surprisingly, She would often gaze at a It took Jen four years to track She quickly learned to get around her upper body is incredibly her with prosthetic legs, but she poster that hung in her gym—a down Dominique’s address. While using her arms. strong. loathed wearing them, preferring to poster of her idol, 1996 Olympic searching, Jen discovered that she Jen “walks” by placing her hands Growing up, Jen was always move on her hands instead. champ Dominique had another sister, Christina. on the ground in front of her, playing with her big brothers, Moceanu. One day, Jen Finally, in 2007, Jen sat down lifting herself up and pulling herself scurrying up rocks, swimming, and Can-Do Spirit announced to her family to write Dominique an old- forward. Indeed, Jen is as adept bouncing on the big trampoline Technically, Jen has a that she was going to go fashioned letter. walking on her hands as others are in her family’s backyard. When “disability,” which is defined as a to the Olympics too—just By the time walking on their feet—though she she was about 2, a doctor outfitted physical or mental condition that BRICKER JEN OF COURTESY IMAGES; KING/GETTY BARRY LEFT): TOP FROM (CLOCKWISE MANDOJANAJOSE like Dominique. Dominique—who 6 SCHOLASTIC SCOPE • FEBRUARY 2017 SCOPE.SCHOLASTIC.COM • FEBRUARY 2017 7 had since retired from gymnastics— hope to be able to respond got to the end of Jen’s letter, she exactly as she has? With was weeping. She immediately fearlessness, with hope, called her mom, who confirmed the with heart? story. Soon after, Dominique and In the introduction Jen spoke on the phone. They were to her new memoir, overjoyed to have found each other, Everything Is Possible, yet sad to have missed so many Jen shares a quote from years of being in each other’s lives. a William Shakespeare play. The line she chose Everything Is Possible could not be more fitting: Today, Jen is 29, and her life “Though she be but little, Jen with her sisters Dominique Moceanu (left) and Christina Moceanu Chapman (middle) has been a whirlwind. She went to she is fierce.” • college, worked at Disney World, and created an aerial act with another acrobat. She has also forged Poem a close connection with Can’t BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST Dominique and Christina. Read this Can’t is the worst word that’s written or spoken; And of course, Jen poem and you’ll see why Doing more harm here than slander and lies; remains as adventurous it reminds us On it is many a strong spirit broken, as ever—she scuba dives, of Jen. kayaks, and surfs.