A tribute to Incredible Jessica Cox: Living life to the fullest with her best feet forward.

How many can drive cars? Almost everyone of us. How many of us have a black-belt in tae kwon do? A good number of you people out there do, I believe. How many people can surf a board on the waves? A small number, perhaps And how many can fly a plane? Very few of us, I think. Now those answers are for folks like you and me. How about if you are born without two arms? That’s right! No arms!

Last night, I slept rather late as I could not stop searching for everything there is to know about this one beautiful fantastic lady I was introduced to by Youtube. There she was standing with the greatest of confidence I have ever encountered in such a little 26 year old, 5 foot one inch tall, armless lady beside a plane and from Youtube I was to discover that this little beautiful lass was capable of everything on earth. That is the impression I get anyway and I think I cannot be wrong as she has proved to the world she can do things many people could not have done.

As I read on I realised I have encountered one of the greatest achiever of all times. She must have been sent by God to show others that the only limits to our lives are all in our minds. And she is the living walking proof of that undeniable fact. Here is a gal who believes that through creativity, persistence and the determination to conquer her fears, everything is possible.

Here is this lady, Jessica Cox, a Pilipino-American who was born in Tucson, Arizona, without arms. No doctor knew how that came about. Anyone would have thought people without arms would just sit helplessly and give up on life. However, as I searched the internet till late I discovered that there are quite a number of people who not only did not just throw down the towel but are successful with their lives.

One of the youngest happen to be a little girl who entered primary school this year at the age of seven. She is from Alor Star, Kedah, Malaysia and her name is Huang Zhaoqian. Despite being born with no arms, she copes with her homework very well by writing with a pencil between her toes. She attracted sufficient attention from Malaysia’s Moral Education Curriculum Committee to have them request for permission from her parents to have her story in next year’s moral education textbook. Then there is this very healthy lady, Barbara Guerra, who lost her arms in an accident at the age of two and a half. She can look after herself well, dressing up, doing her own make-up, brushing her teeth and other everyday activities and even driving her own car wherever she wants and a place she frequents often is the gym. So, people who make use of whatever they have instead of concentrating on whatever they do not have can still live life to the full. And Jessica Cox is one of three armless people who appeared in a one-hour documentary called ‘Born without Arms’ where these people reveal their struggles and talked about their accomplishments. The other two are Nadia and Mark.

When it comes to Jessica Cox, she went to school and just like Malaysia’s Huang Zhaoqian used her toes to turn the pages and write. Well, Jessica did use artificial arms from time to time but she threw them away as she found that they prevented her from doing what came naturally to her. She did wonder why she was not given two arms just like other people. However, she did not wonder too long. Instead she did what she could with what has. She has legs and toes, legs and toes which through practice and work became strong, flexible and capable of feats that helped her to handle things which normally require hands. With those legs and toes she is able to perform anything others use their hands to do. Thus, she is able to dress up, do her own make-up and look after herself such as eat, type, play the piano and even put in her own contact lenses. Even without arms, she also learned how to swim. She swam at the pool in the University of Arizona. Yes, at the university of Arizona for it was there that She studied well to emerge as a Psychology graduate with a bachelor’s degree. (Hope young Malaysian Huang Zhaoqian and her parents read this and be inspired by it.)

The second of three children, Jessica attributes part of her success in life to her parents, William Cox, a retired music teacher and her mother, Inez Macabare from the Philipines, a nurse as well as the support of her older brother, Jason and her younger sister, Jackie. Her parents gave her the confidence by treating her no different from her other children and so it was that she learned early to feed herself, play with toys, comb her hair and write with a pencil with her own feet. When she was three years old, the parents did not stop her from activities where others need their hands. Instead she was enrolled in gymnastic classes. (I know of so many parents who fear so much that their children would hurt themselves that their children were forbidden to take part in such activities. Imagine that! Parents instilling fear instead of providing confidence.) They did not stop at that. At the age of six years, Jessica was already attending swimming and dance classes. By age ten, she was into tae-kwon-do until she obtained her black belt in the seventh grade. And she went on to get her black belt twice! What a tough petite lass. Now we know where and how she became strong with her legs and gained so much agility and confidence in all her activities despite her slender frame.

Jessica Cox who is as fiercely independent as her mother, believes that that sort of attitude is the most important factor she had inherited from her mother. For that kind of independence to be possible, she had to overcome the odds with what she had, two strong legs. That is the formula for success; look for what is in us or what we have and use it. Unfortunately, most of us merely compare with others and complain about what we do not have instead of turning to what we have and using it.

And she is not just tough. She has artistic talent too. She can play the piano. Of course, she can write as she has her own website: www.rightfooted.com and that is where you can avail yourself of her photographs. Isn’t she a beauty? Oh, yes! She will be writing a book on her life with the title ‘Disarming prejudice.’.
Oh, yes, she can drive her own car without any adjustments to the controls. Like Barbara Guerra, she drives very well. When first learning to drive, Jessica was encouraged to use special modifications in her car. But even after her car was modified, she decided to remove them and drove without the changes. She holds an unrestricted driver’s license. With her right foot she grabs the buckles of her seat belt and locked the belt before slipping her body into it. She then turns on the ignition, adjusts the window and air conditioning controls, puts on the direction indicator signal and flips down her sun visor before driving off to her destination, steering with her right foot on the wheel as her left foot works the gas and brake pedals.

And last year in 2009, she became the first armless pilot to obtain a licence to fly a plane using her feet - one manning the steering column and the other the controls. Her license allows her to fly up to 10,000 ft on light sports aircraft. She took three years to gain her licence with her teacher Parrish Traweek guiding her on how to use the controls of the Ercoupe 415 plane with her feet. She was helped by the Able Flight organization which helps disabled people to gain self confidence through flying.

And believe it or not, she said that flying was her greatest fear. It was that fear which motivated her to strive for a few years to be able to fly, to conquer that fear. Well, how many of us are deterred from certain joys due to fear? In her, we see that fear can be overcome with effort and the desire to do it. Of course, as she implies, conquering fear is not easy but it can be done.

For a lady who admitted to being shy the first time she went on stage to dance, Jessica has certainly come a long way through her own steam. She overcame fear and shyness, two of the most debilitating factors in many people’s lives.
Encouraged by her success, she takes her first surfing lesson in Maui, Hawaii. On Youtube, I see her with her instructor going out to sea, then she gets up to stand on the surfboard. While the instructor pedalled with his hands she used her feet to move the surfboard forward. Later, with the instructor nearby, a short distance away in the sea, she stood and surfed all alone.

For a lady yet to reach her 27th birthday, she has come a long, long way without those arms. She has perhaps covered more distance than most people her age. However she was most fortunate to have what to a certain degree many people may lack or possess; loving and understanding parents, supportive siblings, self-dependence, determination, courage, perseverance, positive attitude and the right kind of activities to prepare her for the challenges ahead.

Parents can learn at lot from a study of Jessica’s success as you can see that at an age when she could not have comprehend fully the challenges she may face in life, her parents had started preparing her for a normal life, getting her to perform in activities which gives her the strength and flexibility as well as the much needed courage to live life to the full.

I believe this is one of my most important study of an individual as her life not only bring inspiration; she is an international motivational speaker; but also lessons on bringing up children.