October 18, 2007

Indianapolis Star

Leslie Collins

Faith helps conquer disability

I was at the local grocery deli when I heard the whir of a wheelchair coming from behind. Before I turned around, I knew who it was. So did the deli man.

"Hey, Mark!" he said. "How's it going?" Up wheeled Mark Spolnik bearing that exultant smile of his."I'm happy!" he proclaimed, never losing the smile.

The deli man handed him a sticker bearing some sale slogan. Mark plastered the sticker onto his shirt, said "Thank you," put the chair in gear and

wheeled to the bakery where a lady gave him a cookie and another sticker. He left lots of smiles in his wake. I remember when Mark was born in the

mid-1980s. We were all awaiting the birth of Ken and Bev Spolniks' second child. As time went by, Bev noticed he wasn't doing the same things as

his older sister did as a baby. He seemed floppy. He couldn't sit up, even at 7 and 8 months. She got that knot in the pit of her stomach that a

mother gets when she knows all is not well with her baby. "When the pediatrician refers you to a neurologist, you know it's not good," Bev recalled

last week when I visited Mark at home. He's 23 now. When Mark was 9 months old, a neurologist diagnosed him with cerebral palsy.

"We were put in God's waiting room," Bev said of those early years.

The Spolniks prayed for strength. "Trusting God in a situation like this," Ken said, "is a comforting place to be." Ken and Bev overcame the grief,

the answerless years, the struggles with wheelchairs and working with troublesome adolescent behavior patterns. Mark learned everything from

eating by himself to putting on a shirt through rigorous teaching. Mark graduated in June from Zionsville High, proudly rolling forward to receive

his Certificate of Achievement. He stopped right there to read it aloud. These days, Jessi Nekolite from Arc Rehab Services assists Mark to

volunteer two mornings a week for Special Olympics and spends three mornings in an adult day service program at Crossroads Rehabilitation Center.

At home, the swimming pool is Mark's favorite spot. There, he can stand alone and float free of the daily limitations and pains he endures.

Living in Zionsville has been a blessing, Bev said. Shopkeepers and passers-by know her son. Bill Kern at the shoe store always has Mark's

shoes ready. During my visit last week, I was reading Mark's shirt, with its display of stickers, when he offered me some of his ravioli dinner.

"Can I go home with you?" he asked me, grinning so that I wasn't immediately sure whether he was joking. He was serious. I am honored.