Many times I am asked what it feels like to be missing half a hand. The truth is, even though I am now twenty years old, I don't know. What does it feel like to be missing a finger? Do me a favor and count them, okay? Stop reading and count your fingers.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten! What does it feel like to be missing the eleventh finger? Oh! You don't know, right? I count up to five. You count up to ten. I don't miss anything. Neither do you. And if you are also part of the small group of people who don't count up to ten, like me, then nothing is missing from you either. I am speaking honestly. At first, you don't realize it because all your life you've heard the word "without," because you've always been told "what you're missing." Let me tell you something: you're not missing anything^ you have more than enough.

You have more than enough abilities. Nevertheless, I think it's time to start. What do you say? Everything began…

Everything started at the hospital, in room 102. My grandparents, my great-grandmother, and my aunts had come, and they were waiting^ they were waiting for me. They already knew me^ I was David, the strong and healthy son my parents were expecting, my grandparents longed for, and my whole family couldn't wait for me to be born.

My grandmother, Basi, was sitting and nervously rubbing her fingers, touched: she was constantly twisting her shawl. She was waiting for my father to open the door any moment now, with a smile from ear to ear, holding me in her arms, wrapped in the blanket she had woven with so much love and…