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My birth was a troubled one. When I was born my legs did not work right. I could not walk, I could not stand--my claws laid limp--indeed, all those things were to be denied to me. I was tucked away, to be forgotten--pawned away, perhaps, or else one day abandoned.

He knew my father, he said, and gathered me up in his arms. That he had heard what the doctors had said, and what my caretakers thought, and that he said they were wrong. I did not know what that meant, truthfully, but looking back I am grateful.

He took me, and about my legs he wrapped metal--braces--he called them, and bid me to try. Heavy as they were I could not manage more than to stand. But, for the first time, I stood. Propped up against the cabinets of his small home--I stood and gazed through the wide window that overhung our sink. Outwards, I gazed, into a glittering sky, full of towers and lights that danced like the stars of the sky. Amid shimmering glass, I wondered, what this all meant.

I would never walk well. But I could do so, day by day, week by week, his excitement compelled me and in turn my own grew--for when he smiled the impossible seemed to slink away and I could only try. By my seventh year I could amble, after a fashion, stumbling and fumbling my way across the apartments. It was then that he introduced me to the world beyond our doors.

It was terrifying; deeply so. Wide and bright, tall and windy--beneath those towers, so vast, I felt so very tiny, and though it seemed lost on all those about me, it was never lost on me. For where I once lived, in the fields of a town whose name I never knew, this was as coming to the land of kings.

I cried and ran inside. Overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. We spent a half hour in the doorway, as I clung to the threshold, passerbys sparing us confused or irritated looks that--I know realize--were because a child and his father were obstructing their path. He smiled at them, even as they muttered and spat, but it meant nothing to him.

That same year he had come into something I could not fathom. A long rectangle in shape, when the ivory colored keys upon its face were pressed it rose and rang, filling the air with what I did not know yet was called a note. It was from his mother, he had said, and I realized then that he too had been small--as I was then. It seemed a strange thought. To be bigger. But even then I was growing every day.

Had I known then I would be taller than he was, I would have savored every moment all the more--because I no longer fit in his lap, and the tides of nature have seen fit to deprive me of my greatest joy. My second greatest, however, I could share. And share I did. For what began as smashing those keys turned instead into patterns, and from patterns songs--and in time, by the end of that year, I could play almost anything I could hear. It had become my world, my toy, my opportunity, but more than anything it filled my father with joy. I suppose, in retrospect, he deserved that joy. For the first two months of my fingers bouncing and tapping on the keys must have driven him utterly mad.

Our ventures out into the world, a man and his feline, a father and his son, were always marked by their eyes. They would stare, sometimes wondering what curious events had made me so pliable--so well behaved. A trained cat! They oft laughed, until I told them how much my father meant to me. Then their mouths, pinned shut in shame, became still.

I did not, truthfully, make many friends when I was small. Not for lack of opportunity, but simply because I would be fearful of their games--their roughness. Indeed, once my father had asked me to meet two other kittens, and when they began their bapping and darting about the home I simply had returned to sit beside him and the caretakers of the feline pair.

When they asked why, I admitted, I was scared to break my braces. My father had smiled, conceding the point, and asked me something: If I wanted to take them off to play?

The thought seemed impossible! How, why? I needed them! Surely there was nothing I could do without them except play the part of prey, being pounced upon. He conceded. I could not chase them, but perhaps I did not need to. Meekly, I accepted the idea he proposed, and when next the feline pair zipped before me I lunged--an ambush predator. The mewled and whined, surprised and upset as I jolted them from their game and into mine. Perched atop them both, I grinned, turning to my father with a wild look in my eyes.

They had the better of me for the rest of the afternoon, but it was the first time I had felt on-par with my peers. Not pitied. Not regarded as a broken thing. I was, simply, a kitten. And they had not pulled their punches. My father did not intervene, and, though it was frustrating, in the end I think he made the correct decision. As I grew, I would appreciate that more.

Indeed. Had he coddled me and left me unchallenged I believe I would have become lazy, after a fashion--or perhaps resentful. I did not want to be something people looked down on. I wanted to be someone others saw as just that: a person. No different than they, despite all the things I struggled with. Few people would see me like that. They would see me as a child, or a feline, or as broken. I was many things to many people, but I was never to them who I was when my father looked upon me: Simply myself.

I was not a kitten who loved to learn. I am ashamed to admit that now, but in my youth when I was exposed to studies, if they were not something that interested me, I shied away freely. Occasionally, I would, being so rebellious, at last upset his temper and find myself confined--though in truth I think enjoyed those strictures. For when, at last, the law was laid upon me I knew he did not treat me so gently simply because he fear for my condition, but that his patience was born of sincere affection for me.

That never stopped me from taking advantage of him though. Not in undue ways, but I knew there was one thing I could always do that, no matter when I did it--no matter the trouble I was in--that would turn his anger into nothing more than a contented sigh. I stumbled upon it unknowingly, having forgotten his frustrations with me the evening before. I would sneak from my room, using a little loop of dental floss, and slink as silent as a shadow to the keyboard. There, I would play, with all my heart.

It would wake him inevitably, and slowly it became a sort of apology between us. Though, to be fair, I would do it only when I truly had come to a place where I had regretted upsetting him so. That first time had been beautiful--to play in the midst of the storm that lashed and raged about the edges of our apartment, and then to find a second set of hands beside my own.

He had known how to play, though I had long outgrown his own talents. We had played, side by side in tandem for an hour or two before I had found the strength to mutter my apology. I do not know why it had taken so long. Maybe I was afraid that he would not forgive me. A silly fear, I realize, but I think we all have silly fears from time to time.

His response had, at first scared me. For he dipped low, unwinding my braces from about my legs, and I thought he might take them away. He did not. Instead he gathered me up, much as he had those years long before, and carried me away. I slept beside him, listening to the strokes of thunder as he hummed the very song we had played in the minutes before. I do not recall a night I have slept the same. The deep comfort of that rest, to this day, comes to mind and fills me. I am too old for it now, but then I was too old for it then as well.

I did not wish to be schooled, truthfully. I did not wish to be led out into the world. The world was, to my eyes, a wide, scary place--and being away from my father filled me with no small amount of distress. Yes, sometimes he would go, but he would come back and I would always be waiting. Thus, when he told me I would be sent to learn among other children--humans and otherwise, I threw what I can only truly describe as a fit.

It felt like a betrayal--that I was no longer fit for his presence. I told him he could not make me. That I did not have to walk. Thus I took the gift he had given me and hurled back, shouting I would not leave. That was, I think, the first time I had seen him angry. I had hurt him--and I did not realize it. He left for the day and I crawled to the porch. Amid the summer sun I dried my tears to the songs of the birds far below.

His return filled me with more trepidation, for he did not return with my braces. Indeed, he ignored me for much the day, speaking in short monosyllable words, announcing my dinner by lowering the plate to the floor. I could not apologize, not because he would not listen, but because I could not relent of my own anger. I spent the evening along the floor, creeping to my bed sometime early in the night, and I fumed late into the evening. How could he treat me like this? How could he take these things from me? How could he take away the things on which I depended?

Then again, I had thrown them at him, had not I? I had tossed his gift away--he had simply taken it as I demanded he do. That I would not leave. It was not a solution to my anger, but it was a first step. For it was the first step to realizing that my father too was a person. With his own hopes and dreams--that none of him existed in a vacuum. That he did not exist in a vacuum, but rather in obstinate defiance to what I knew others regarded me as. That, yes, he believed in me--and I had told him not to.

He apologized first, and then I followed. When I asked if he would bring them back, my braces, he laughed--saying no. I stared, bewildered, until he explained: They were too small now anyway. I would need new ones. I stumbled over his response, nearly shoving him off the couch for it. I grinned all the same, apologized once more and rested against him, wondering why he had such patience.

I was astonished when he told me he had a temper much hotter than my own, and that he had struggled with it, throughout his youth and young adulthood. That it had taken a long time for him to master, and that the path he had taken to do so was precisely this: To look at the world from the eyes of others. When I asked what he had seen in my eyes, he smiled and matched my gaze. Fear, he said.

That I was afraid. Because this was all I had ever known, but I could know so much more. That I doubted I could do it, but unless I tried I would never truly know. I agreed, hard as it was--I wanted to do the things I knew I could do. If I did not know how to do them, then how was I supposed to do them? He pointed towards the keyboard and asked me how I had learned to play the instrument.

I fumbled over the answer but he knew what it was, and I burned in embarrassment as he answered for me: That I had not known how not to play--that I did not care that I did not know; the only thing that mattered is I wanted to play. From there I had learned the keys and how they fit together. The only thing truly exceptional was that I did not hesitate to try. That I was not ashamed of my failures but only delighted in my successes. I had become better in the doing--that by making these mistakes, by missing notes and keys, by struggling to identify them, my hearing and mind sharpened to the music, and then once I knew what the music sounded like I could create my own.

So he spurred me onward with words where I realize many others would have done so with whips. He pushed me to learn, and challenged me to do so--spending time beside me, discussing each of the things I did not yet know. We talked and laughed, side by side, and on those nights where he could not sleep from the stress of the day I set about the one task I knew would ease his burdens, playing whatever song might have filled my heart and mind that evening.

In talking I think I understood him better. Though he had no fur, no muzzle or tail, we were both people. We had thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears--in truth, we were different, but very much the same. His world had been different than mine, and mine would different from that of my own children. The thought had baffled me, but as I grew older I realized there was more truth to it--there was nothing truly static in the world. Whether it changed by inches or miles, there would always be a distance between generations, and it would be my challenge to bridge that--just as he had with me.

I came to this school a fearful child, and I have left it now with a sense of understanding. More than knowledge garnered by classes alone, more than in my interactions with peers I did not know, but something that cannot be taught in mere hours, days, weeks, or, yes, even years. A lesson that takes a lifetime and begins the moment we first hear ask the question: Who am I?

Was I defined by my grades? By my father's wealth? Perhaps by the place where I was born? What of my disability? Did my friends define me? My interests and hobbies? Was I defined by my fur and tail and the lack there of among my peers? Or was it I who determined who I was--who I am? People will tell me differently, I do not doubt it.

Those same people have never lived my life. They have never faced my fears or hopes. They cannot judge me because they do not know me--they know only what they see. Truthfully, I am still learning about who I am--I think I will all my life. For I do not believe there is a start or a stop to those things. We change a little every day, or we do nothing but I remember this: Where there is growth, there is little comfort; oft, when there is comfort there is little growth. Simply because it is difficult does not mean it is an evil; simply because we suffer and struggle does not mean there is nothing to be gained. I am not disadvantaged because I struggle to walk--that struggle has given me a perspective entirely different.

So when my father admitted to me that, if I wished, I could be free of these braces--that he was certain enough of the treatment--I was forced to consider what that could mean. Would that change who I was? Would I be me if I walked plainly, as others did? There were other kittens, I did not doubt, who would jump at the opportunity. Was it right of me to decline it? What of people who suffered as I did however? Was it right of me to accept that?

I have no answer for you. I have, in the end, only the answer for me. That I will choose what I wish to choose. That some people will hate me, that some will rejoice--but that I am not held responsible to any of them. I am responsible to myself, for my own happiness. If I told you what I chose it would color these words you hear now. Perhaps pull from them some of the meaning I wish they had on your heart.

We leave this place today with what we choose to take away. Be it friends, knowledge, or nothing. We leave each day with the same, asking ourselves what we did and what it was worth. Some days are brilliant, and the stars lean down to touch us. Others are painful, where nothing we do seems right and everyone around us hurts. Each of these has something to explain to us still. Embrace each day, its challenges and joys, choose who you wish to be in the face of those stark odds all others say cannot be traversed. Just perhaps, that alone, will land you among the stars.