Essay On Burcaw

“A summer day doesn’t get much better in my mind. It’s relaxing, simple, and nothing happens to remind me of the disease that’s slowly destroying every muscle in my body.” And so is the tale of Shane Burcaw, a 21-year-old with spinal muscular atrophy. With a disease that slowly cripples him to the point where one day, he will no longer even be able to lift his own head up, Burcaw aims to provide a humorous look into his daily life—and reveal that a life-threatening disease should not stop any one from being an authentic human being. As he states, “The beauty begins when you connect with other people and realize that we’re all in the same boat. Once we accept that life is inherently difficult, we can move on and focus on having a good time despite the tough stuff.” For Burcaw, his “tough stuff” might be tremendously more dangerous than the average individual’s, but his purpose in writing his book is to explain that struggles are an inherent part of being a human, and that through it all, all individuals can find a way to connect with each other. The author’s intended audience is older, more mature teenagers and younger adults. His anecdotes often vividly and mildly profanely recall some of his most challenging and emotional moments. “Everyone starts to get a …show more content…
At his first school dance, Burcaw comments that “This was clearly an event for able-bodied people, and I’m not sure why I imagined a DANCE would be any different.” His peers’ inability to see the true individual behind the disability alienates Burcaw for much of his childhood life, and trying to find a stable friend group to understand his difficulties does not prove easy for Burcaw. This external conflict can be applied to many readers, as many children are singled out and excluded; however, Burcaw experiences it on an astronomically different scale because of his medical