There are few things more Canadian than the War Amps key tag service. It’s been around for 75 years and no one appreciates it more than 13-year-old Sydney Gravel (grah-VELL) of Cochrane.
She was born without a right hand. War Amps has provided a prosthetic hand and several attachments. Sydney says it makes a difference, as it did when she had trouble riding a bike.
“Other things like sometime playing sports like badminton,” she recalls, “it would be harder for me to serve, so I couldn’t play as well as the other kids and it made me kind of feel different.”
Sydney adds that she has always done fine with other things, and plays like other kids, “which is nice.”
And she values the War Amps seminars she has attended.
“They really taught me and made me feel like I wasn’t along out there and that there were other people out there who felt the same way that I did and taught me that I shouldn’t be ashamed of what I am and who I am and having an amputation,” she states. “So it was nice to feel like I wasn’t different, that I feel normal.” …Just like a 13-year-old girl.