April 2, 2026 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Chloe Howard was born with a congenital clubfoot, a condition known medically as talipes equinovarus that affects how the foot develops before birth. From infancy through her teenage years, she underwent repeated treatments and surgeries to correct it, spending much of her childhood in casts, on crutches, and in recovery.
Chloe shares what it was like to grow up with clubfoot and how the condition shaped her identity.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories, and up next
we have the story of Chloe Howard. Chloe has written
two books and has spoken internationally all before graduating high school.
Here's Chloe with her story.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I've had nine surgeries, or nine major surgeries. I for
the past twenty years have lived with a very severe
congenital foot deformity. So when I was born, my foot
was upside down and backwards. I had my first surgery
when I was six months old, and then my most
(00:46):
recent surgery December of twenty eighteen. And a large part
of my identity was being the girl that's different, you know,
the one that shows up to school in a bright
pink cast, the one that has to ask older classmen
in high school, like hold the door open for me
so I can wheel myself through on a wheelchair. Crutches
(01:06):
were something that I was very used to. Was just
used to being the person that was different. But my parents,
because of their faith, the minute I was born, it
just was this foundation of gratitude. It was like wow,
like she's here. I wasn't supposed to be born alive. Wow,
Cloy's here. And the foot okay, interesting, A really cool curveball.
(01:30):
We will get through this. Wow, how beautiful is this
thing that we get to celebrate? How cool is this
difference that we get to experience now. I remember being
very young, probably three or four, and looking out at
my feet outstretched in front of me, and being so
in awe of just the way my feet looked, my
(01:52):
growing collection of scars, and all the points on my
toes where toenails should be but weren't consistently. I just
was proud of my feet and what they were going through.
And I do have these memories of going on daddy
daughter dates to see my surgeon, and having kids in
my classes want to always sign my casts. And it
(02:15):
was kind of exciting having surgery sometimes because it was
going back to this place that felt familiar to me,
which feels so strange to say, but as someone who
spent so much time with nurses and goofing around with
surgeons and being in those physically compromising states, it was
this gentle familiarity, this very strange but acceptable rhythm of Okay,
(02:41):
this is different, and this is me living out this difference.
As I got older, there were moments of me interacting
with societal norms. I remember going to the pools in
the summer and seeing all the little girls with like
their colorful little tonail polish and being like, okay, interesting,
I I don't have toenails to pay colorful little shades.
(03:03):
And so I would take colored sharpies and make little
dots on the end of my toes to give the
illusion that I have a little colorful toenails. And then I'd
have moments of clarity where I was like, oh, these
are dots of colored sharpie on my feet. This looks
very strange. I guess I'll just be toenail as for reals.
As I've gotten older, very much recognized that many aspects
(03:28):
of my childhood looked different because my foot looked different.
But also there was so much love that I was
surrounded by. I mean, I think it's very easy to
play like the what if game, you know. I want
to believe that I'm a very different Chloe because of
the foot that I have. And who knows, I could
(03:49):
be like super incredible soccer player or something if I
didn't have a foot that function like a golf club.
But that's not the case. My foot is very interesting
and the anatomy is very strange, and I will never
be a fantastic soccer player. But my childhood was very
(04:11):
full and it wasn't until something happened when I was
fourteen that those main ideas about myself shifted. When I
was fourteen, I was the victim of assault hate crime
because of my foot deformity. November twentieth, twenty fourteen, I
(04:32):
was attending a private Christian high school. I was very
excited to be yet I had never been to like
a big private school like that. I was eating lunch
with some of my friends in the big outdoor quad
area and was approached by two individuals who said like
Chloe Kamier and I was like okay, because they were
(04:54):
like cool kids, you know. I was like so excited.
I thought they would ask me a question about school
or something. And I was like, okay, this is like
my social in and so I walked over to the
table right next to mine where they and their friends
had been sitting, and one of the people said, Chloe,
take off your shoe. I was so confused that I
(05:15):
couldn't really process the question. I was like, oh what,
And again the person said Chloe, take off your shoe,
and then they turned to their friends and said, she
doesn't have any toenails, and I remember thinking like, oh,
this is not a normal social interaction that I'm having
(05:36):
right now. This doesn't feel right. I don't like this
feeling in me. You know, later I look back and
recognize that that was one of my first experiences with
the concept of consent. What happens when someone else tries
to tell your story for you. I felt naked and
(05:58):
it felt strange. I've ever been ashamed of my foot before.
I'd always been okay with telling that story, but in
that moment, someone else was telling it for me, and
it didn't feel good again. The person said, Chloe, take
off your shoe, and I said, no, you know, I'm okay,
take off your shoe. No thanks, I'm good. Take off
your shoe. No, I don't want to. And then another
(06:18):
person said, okay, fine, I'll come help. And so the
two people, one was knelt on the ground untying my shoe,
and the other came from behind me and wrapped their
arms around me. I froze. I didn't know that I
was allowed to lash out. I didn't know that I
was allowed to just walk away. I thought only about
(06:41):
what people would think of me, and I didn't want
to be the girl that kicked and screamed. I didn't
want to be the girl that walked away. And on
the security footage, you can see me just standing there.
This person knelt beside me untying my shoe, removing the
laces completely. You can see this other person standing behind
me there, arms around me, and then you can see
(07:02):
them squat and lift me up off the ground so
the first person can remove my shoe and then my sock,
and then they pull my leg up and pulled it out.
All their friends lean in and I'm just there, not moving.
I remember sitting on the stand and trial in the
(07:24):
middle of testifying, like watching this clip from the security footage,
and I look so rigid, and all these heads lean
in and then they release me, and I grab my
shoe and I grab my sock and I stuffed my
foot in my sock and my sock and my shoe,
and I walk back to my table that's five feet
(07:45):
away and sit down. All the emotional weight that this
foot has carried for me and will continue to carry
for me throughout my life, all of that was revealed
Following that day and Novem of twenty fourteen, I became
someone that I didn't recognize. I quickly became depressed. My
(08:05):
anxiety became very large, very pronounced. I couldn't sleep, I
had a hard time eating. I began struggling with suicidal ideation.
This thing that existed my feet. They used to be
this thing that I was so proud of, and all
of a sudden, there was this big, huge, gaping hole
(08:28):
where that like love and acceptance and pride for those
feet had been. I looked down at my feet every
day when I was putting on socks and shoes, and
I was reminded that my feet caused this incident to happen.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And we're listening to Chloe Howard chair her story. She
had gone through life right up to the age of
fourteen with a remarkable attitude about her foot deformity, until,
of course, that day of hate. After that day, she said,
I became someone I couldn't recognize. When we come back,
what happens next with Chloe Howard here on our American story?
(09:39):
And we returned to our American stories and Chloe Howard's story.
She'd been a victim of a hate crime due to
her foot deformity. She had begun withdrawing into herself she
was filled with shame and anxiety. We returned now to
Chloe for the rest of her story.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
The case just appeared on the DA's desk one morning
and she met with my family initially and said, this
to me reads like a rape case. But then she said,
you know, you were touched when you didn't want to
be touched. Articles of clothing were removed when you didn't
(10:22):
want them to be removed. You said no, and those
no's weren't heard. Then, looking at your behavior following the event,
you withdrew within yourself. You began to doubt your own story.
You started to struggle with PTSD, and that manifested itself
in a very physical way. You were nauseous, you were
sweaty whenever you saw these people. Your body was shaking.
(10:44):
You couldn't eat, you couldn't sleep. This reads like a
rape case, Chloe, And I mean, these were very large
statements to hear at fourteen, and it just wrote this
narrative that then followed me for the next two years,
through the court case and the trial. Several months after
my assault, my dad, apparently on his Facebook feed he
(11:07):
had entered to win this random contest he had donated
to an organization called Red because he really likes the
band You Too. And then randomly, several months after this assault,
he got an email that he had won this event
and he was brought onto a FaceTime call, and it
was this representative from a company called O Mays that
(11:28):
had partnered with Red to raise awareness for HIV AIDS
and also to sponsor an event that could enable someone
to meet Bono. My dad had won out of like
thousands and thousands of people that had won, and we're
not a family that wins anything. Ever, it seems very
weird to say that as something that's significant. But in
(11:49):
this time where I felt so lost, I didn't understand
what my God was doing with my story. I just
didn't get it. There was this like bright, excite thing
that happened. And so about six months after my assault
was like the time when the event my dad had
one happened. And so he and I, because he decided
(12:11):
to take me, flew out to Denver, Colorado, and met Bono,
the lead singer of the band YouTube backstage. We started
talking and I ended up telling him my story about
my club foot and about my assault and about how
one of his songs had been really influential to me
during this time, and he looked at me, this like
(12:32):
incredible short Irish man wearing all leather, just exuding energy
and passion. He looked at me and he was like, Chloe,
your voice matters, Chloe. He quoted Martin Luther King Junior.
He said, the arc of the universe bends towards justice
and love. And when you speak, Chloe, you speak for
(12:52):
those who cannot speak for themselves. And I now, at
age fifteen, I was like, oh, okay, I guess when
Bona says something like that, he like do something about it.
So that was like this very random, very crazy, weird
Kickstart event where an Irish rock star was like, Chloe,
maybe you should start speaking about this. Growing up, I
(13:14):
was super shy. I was ten out of ten, an introvert.
I was like the kid that sat on the edge
of the playground and watched everyone else play. But I
felt this thing inside of me that was like, I
don't like how I feel right now. I don't like
sitting in this hole. I don't like feeling lost and
separate from myself. I don't like it. I need to
(13:37):
do something about it. I don't want to feel stuck
like this forever. So one night, when I was supposed
to be doing homework, I applied to give a TED talk.
Definitely one of the most reckless things I've ever done
in my entire life. I applied without telling my parents,
and four months later got an email saying I had
been accepted to give a TED talk, and I panicked immediately.
(13:59):
I was like, oh, this is not good. I am
not prepared for this. I should not have done this.
Now I have to give a TAD talk. And so
the next eight weeks I spent writing sixteen minutes of
material and completely memorizing it and falling in love with
this developing message of self acceptance and love and anti bullying.
(14:21):
And it became this idea that I named stand Beautiful
for me. Stand beautiful meant that you were standing on
a beautiful foundation, and you were actively and continually redefining
beauty for yourself because of who you are and not
like what others said that you were. So on August twentieth,
(14:45):
twenty sixteen, I walked out onto this TED stage, having
never spoken in front of an audience ever, and I
stood there barefoot on that like iconic red circle shaped
carpet and spoke, and for the first time in those
two years since the assault, I felt all the power
(15:06):
that was taken from me and my assault was given
right back. From that initial ted talk, I started getting
a lot of feedback, a lot of like Chloe, come
speak at my event, come speak at my church. Can
I interview you on my show? And all of a sudden,
it was me realizing that this was so much larger
than myself. During this time, still, I a California district attorney,
(15:31):
had decided to prosecute the perpetrators and try them for
a felony hate crime, and so I was going through trial.
I was sitting on the stand and having to testify
while watching security footage of my assault play on repeat,
and in trial my truth being questioned by like very
old professional men. I mean, it was terrifying. I was taught.
(15:56):
I think in those moments where I was sitting there
viting to get these defense attorneys to just recognize that
I was telling the truth, I realized how important it
is for us as people to just trust that our
experience is our reality, to say words and believe their power.
It wasn't until I was sitting there on the stand
(16:19):
having people try and find holes in my story, trying
to assign a timeline and say, well, it couldn't have
been assault, It couldn't have ripping off your shoe if
the video says that it took more seconds than the
term ripped would allow. All these little things that made
me feel less than worth it. It was in those
(16:39):
moments that I decided that I wanted to exist as
someone who contained power. And I remember walking out of
the juvenile hall that the trial was held in and
feeling so being down but also alive, like this energy
was race through me. They were ultimately sentenced with a
(17:04):
misdemeanor battery, which is an unlawful touching. I carried the
weight of the assault for many years, and it wasn't
until the last perpetrator was finally sentenced that I felt
like it was right for me to let go. I
(17:25):
think that forgiveness is one of the most divine things
we as people have access to, and because it's this
sacred interaction of grace and justice, I believe that forgiveness
should not be rushed. When it's rushed, it risks being ingenuine.
(17:47):
But when the perpetrators were sentenced, I felt finally at
peace enough with the situation to forgive my perpetrators. I've
learned in the past couple of years of sharing this
story that vulnerability is met with vulnerability. And whenever I
show up and share the story, people do come up
(18:11):
to me and they share a story similar or that
reminded them of it, or something they're currently going through,
and I feel so humbled and honored and grateful to
be a part of that journey. And the fact that
they trust me with these stories doesn't make sense to
me because this life, again, like it, it isn't easy, but
(18:34):
when we talk about it and are able to share
the harder things we're going through, it becomes that much easier.
One of my most favorite things to come out of
this is finding this community of people with club feet.
Growing up was super isolating having a club foot because
(18:56):
I didn't know anyone else that had a clubfoot, especially
when us severe as mine. Now I know people all
around the world that have feet that look like mine
and have had the same surgeries as mine and the
same scars that I do. And I think it's this
powerful illustration of this metaphorical truth that, like, we all
(19:16):
have scars, but when we become okay with the fact
that scars are just these really special manifestations of pain
that we've overcome. That's when crazy cool things happen. But
I do know that even though it's my name on
the spines of those books and it is my face
(19:39):
that has been seen on TV, like, it's not about me.
It just happened to be me in my foot.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
We all have scars, she said, and there's special manifestations
of pain overcome. The story of Chloe Howard here American
story h
And we continue with our American stories, and up next
we have the story of Chloe Howard. Chloe has written
two books and has spoken internationally all before graduating high school.
Here's Chloe with her story.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I've had nine surgeries, or nine major surgeries. I for
the past twenty years have lived with a very severe
congenital foot deformity. So when I was born, my foot
was upside down and backwards. I had my first surgery
when I was six months old, and then my most
(00:46):
recent surgery December of twenty eighteen. And a large part
of my identity was being the girl that's different, you know,
the one that shows up to school in a bright
pink cast, the one that has to ask older classmen
in high school, like hold the door open for me
so I can wheel myself through on a wheelchair. Crutches
(01:06):
were something that I was very used to. Was just
used to being the person that was different. But my parents,
because of their faith, the minute I was born, it
just was this foundation of gratitude. It was like wow,
like she's here. I wasn't supposed to be born alive. Wow,
Cloy's here. And the foot okay, interesting, A really cool curveball.
(01:30):
We will get through this. Wow, how beautiful is this
thing that we get to celebrate? How cool is this
difference that we get to experience now. I remember being
very young, probably three or four, and looking out at
my feet outstretched in front of me, and being so
in awe of just the way my feet looked, my
(01:52):
growing collection of scars, and all the points on my
toes where toenails should be but weren't consistently. I just
was proud of my feet and what they were going through.
And I do have these memories of going on daddy
daughter dates to see my surgeon, and having kids in
my classes want to always sign my casts. And it
(02:15):
was kind of exciting having surgery sometimes because it was
going back to this place that felt familiar to me,
which feels so strange to say, but as someone who
spent so much time with nurses and goofing around with
surgeons and being in those physically compromising states, it was
this gentle familiarity, this very strange but acceptable rhythm of Okay,
(02:41):
this is different, and this is me living out this difference.
As I got older, there were moments of me interacting
with societal norms. I remember going to the pools in
the summer and seeing all the little girls with like
their colorful little tonail polish and being like, okay, interesting,
I I don't have toenails to pay colorful little shades.
(03:03):
And so I would take colored sharpies and make little
dots on the end of my toes to give the
illusion that I have a little colorful toenails. And then I'd
have moments of clarity where I was like, oh, these
are dots of colored sharpie on my feet. This looks
very strange. I guess I'll just be toenail as for reals.
As I've gotten older, very much recognized that many aspects
(03:28):
of my childhood looked different because my foot looked different.
But also there was so much love that I was
surrounded by. I mean, I think it's very easy to
play like the what if game, you know. I want
to believe that I'm a very different Chloe because of
the foot that I have. And who knows, I could
(03:49):
be like super incredible soccer player or something if I
didn't have a foot that function like a golf club.
But that's not the case. My foot is very interesting
and the anatomy is very strange, and I will never
be a fantastic soccer player. But my childhood was very
(04:11):
full and it wasn't until something happened when I was
fourteen that those main ideas about myself shifted. When I
was fourteen, I was the victim of assault hate crime
because of my foot deformity. November twentieth, twenty fourteen, I
(04:32):
was attending a private Christian high school. I was very
excited to be yet I had never been to like
a big private school like that. I was eating lunch
with some of my friends in the big outdoor quad
area and was approached by two individuals who said like
Chloe Kamier and I was like okay, because they were
(04:54):
like cool kids, you know. I was like so excited.
I thought they would ask me a question about school
or something. And I was like, okay, this is like
my social in and so I walked over to the
table right next to mine where they and their friends
had been sitting, and one of the people said, Chloe,
take off your shoe. I was so confused that I
(05:15):
couldn't really process the question. I was like, oh what,
And again the person said Chloe, take off your shoe,
and then they turned to their friends and said, she
doesn't have any toenails, and I remember thinking like, oh,
this is not a normal social interaction that I'm having
(05:36):
right now. This doesn't feel right. I don't like this
feeling in me. You know, later I look back and
recognize that that was one of my first experiences with
the concept of consent. What happens when someone else tries
to tell your story for you. I felt naked and
(05:58):
it felt strange. I've ever been ashamed of my foot before.
I'd always been okay with telling that story, but in
that moment, someone else was telling it for me, and
it didn't feel good again. The person said, Chloe, take
off your shoe, and I said, no, you know, I'm okay,
take off your shoe. No thanks, I'm good. Take off
your shoe. No, I don't want to. And then another
(06:18):
person said, okay, fine, I'll come help. And so the
two people, one was knelt on the ground untying my shoe,
and the other came from behind me and wrapped their
arms around me. I froze. I didn't know that I
was allowed to lash out. I didn't know that I
was allowed to just walk away. I thought only about
(06:41):
what people would think of me, and I didn't want
to be the girl that kicked and screamed. I didn't
want to be the girl that walked away. And on
the security footage, you can see me just standing there.
This person knelt beside me untying my shoe, removing the
laces completely. You can see this other person standing behind
me there, arms around me, and then you can see
(07:02):
them squat and lift me up off the ground so
the first person can remove my shoe and then my sock,
and then they pull my leg up and pulled it out.
All their friends lean in and I'm just there, not moving.
I remember sitting on the stand and trial in the
(07:24):
middle of testifying, like watching this clip from the security footage,
and I look so rigid, and all these heads lean
in and then they release me, and I grab my
shoe and I grab my sock and I stuffed my
foot in my sock and my sock and my shoe,
and I walk back to my table that's five feet
(07:45):
away and sit down. All the emotional weight that this
foot has carried for me and will continue to carry
for me throughout my life, all of that was revealed
Following that day and Novem of twenty fourteen, I became
someone that I didn't recognize. I quickly became depressed. My
(08:05):
anxiety became very large, very pronounced. I couldn't sleep, I
had a hard time eating. I began struggling with suicidal ideation.
This thing that existed my feet. They used to be
this thing that I was so proud of, and all
of a sudden, there was this big, huge, gaping hole
(08:28):
where that like love and acceptance and pride for those
feet had been. I looked down at my feet every
day when I was putting on socks and shoes, and
I was reminded that my feet caused this incident to happen.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And we're listening to Chloe Howard chair her story. She
had gone through life right up to the age of
fourteen with a remarkable attitude about her foot deformity, until,
of course, that day of hate. After that day, she said,
I became someone I couldn't recognize. When we come back,
what happens next with Chloe Howard here on our American story?
(09:39):
And we returned to our American stories and Chloe Howard's story.
She'd been a victim of a hate crime due to
her foot deformity. She had begun withdrawing into herself she
was filled with shame and anxiety. We returned now to
Chloe for the rest of her story.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
The case just appeared on the DA's desk one morning
and she met with my family initially and said, this
to me reads like a rape case. But then she said,
you know, you were touched when you didn't want to
be touched. Articles of clothing were removed when you didn't
(10:22):
want them to be removed. You said no, and those
no's weren't heard. Then, looking at your behavior following the event,
you withdrew within yourself. You began to doubt your own story.
You started to struggle with PTSD, and that manifested itself
in a very physical way. You were nauseous, you were
sweaty whenever you saw these people. Your body was shaking.
(10:44):
You couldn't eat, you couldn't sleep. This reads like a
rape case, Chloe, And I mean, these were very large
statements to hear at fourteen, and it just wrote this
narrative that then followed me for the next two years,
through the court case and the trial. Several months after
my assault, my dad, apparently on his Facebook feed he
(11:07):
had entered to win this random contest he had donated
to an organization called Red because he really likes the
band You Too. And then randomly, several months after this assault,
he got an email that he had won this event
and he was brought onto a FaceTime call, and it
was this representative from a company called O Mays that
(11:28):
had partnered with Red to raise awareness for HIV AIDS
and also to sponsor an event that could enable someone
to meet Bono. My dad had won out of like
thousands and thousands of people that had won, and we're
not a family that wins anything. Ever, it seems very
weird to say that as something that's significant. But in
(11:49):
this time where I felt so lost, I didn't understand
what my God was doing with my story. I just
didn't get it. There was this like bright, excite thing
that happened. And so about six months after my assault
was like the time when the event my dad had
one happened. And so he and I, because he decided
(12:11):
to take me, flew out to Denver, Colorado, and met Bono,
the lead singer of the band YouTube backstage. We started
talking and I ended up telling him my story about
my club foot and about my assault and about how
one of his songs had been really influential to me
during this time, and he looked at me, this like
(12:32):
incredible short Irish man wearing all leather, just exuding energy
and passion. He looked at me and he was like, Chloe,
your voice matters, Chloe. He quoted Martin Luther King Junior.
He said, the arc of the universe bends towards justice
and love. And when you speak, Chloe, you speak for
(12:52):
those who cannot speak for themselves. And I now, at
age fifteen, I was like, oh, okay, I guess when
Bona says something like that, he like do something about it.
So that was like this very random, very crazy, weird
Kickstart event where an Irish rock star was like, Chloe,
maybe you should start speaking about this. Growing up, I
(13:14):
was super shy. I was ten out of ten, an introvert.
I was like the kid that sat on the edge
of the playground and watched everyone else play. But I
felt this thing inside of me that was like, I
don't like how I feel right now. I don't like
sitting in this hole. I don't like feeling lost and
separate from myself. I don't like it. I need to
(13:37):
do something about it. I don't want to feel stuck
like this forever. So one night, when I was supposed
to be doing homework, I applied to give a TED talk.
Definitely one of the most reckless things I've ever done
in my entire life. I applied without telling my parents,
and four months later got an email saying I had
been accepted to give a TED talk, and I panicked immediately.
(13:59):
I was like, oh, this is not good. I am
not prepared for this. I should not have done this.
Now I have to give a TAD talk. And so
the next eight weeks I spent writing sixteen minutes of
material and completely memorizing it and falling in love with
this developing message of self acceptance and love and anti bullying.
(14:21):
And it became this idea that I named stand Beautiful
for me. Stand beautiful meant that you were standing on
a beautiful foundation, and you were actively and continually redefining
beauty for yourself because of who you are and not
like what others said that you were. So on August twentieth,
(14:45):
twenty sixteen, I walked out onto this TED stage, having
never spoken in front of an audience ever, and I
stood there barefoot on that like iconic red circle shaped
carpet and spoke, and for the first time in those
two years since the assault, I felt all the power
(15:06):
that was taken from me and my assault was given
right back. From that initial ted talk, I started getting
a lot of feedback, a lot of like Chloe, come
speak at my event, come speak at my church. Can
I interview you on my show? And all of a sudden,
it was me realizing that this was so much larger
than myself. During this time, still, I a California district attorney,
(15:31):
had decided to prosecute the perpetrators and try them for
a felony hate crime, and so I was going through trial.
I was sitting on the stand and having to testify
while watching security footage of my assault play on repeat,
and in trial my truth being questioned by like very
old professional men. I mean, it was terrifying. I was taught.
(15:56):
I think in those moments where I was sitting there
viting to get these defense attorneys to just recognize that
I was telling the truth, I realized how important it
is for us as people to just trust that our
experience is our reality, to say words and believe their power.
It wasn't until I was sitting there on the stand
(16:19):
having people try and find holes in my story, trying
to assign a timeline and say, well, it couldn't have
been assault, It couldn't have ripping off your shoe if
the video says that it took more seconds than the
term ripped would allow. All these little things that made
me feel less than worth it. It was in those
(16:39):
moments that I decided that I wanted to exist as
someone who contained power. And I remember walking out of
the juvenile hall that the trial was held in and
feeling so being down but also alive, like this energy
was race through me. They were ultimately sentenced with a
(17:04):
misdemeanor battery, which is an unlawful touching. I carried the
weight of the assault for many years, and it wasn't
until the last perpetrator was finally sentenced that I felt
like it was right for me to let go. I
(17:25):
think that forgiveness is one of the most divine things
we as people have access to, and because it's this
sacred interaction of grace and justice, I believe that forgiveness
should not be rushed. When it's rushed, it risks being ingenuine.
(17:47):
But when the perpetrators were sentenced, I felt finally at
peace enough with the situation to forgive my perpetrators. I've
learned in the past couple of years of sharing this
story that vulnerability is met with vulnerability. And whenever I
show up and share the story, people do come up
(18:11):
to me and they share a story similar or that
reminded them of it, or something they're currently going through,
and I feel so humbled and honored and grateful to
be a part of that journey. And the fact that
they trust me with these stories doesn't make sense to
me because this life, again, like it, it isn't easy, but
(18:34):
when we talk about it and are able to share
the harder things we're going through, it becomes that much easier.
One of my most favorite things to come out of
this is finding this community of people with club feet.
Growing up was super isolating having a club foot because
(18:56):
I didn't know anyone else that had a clubfoot, especially
when us severe as mine. Now I know people all
around the world that have feet that look like mine
and have had the same surgeries as mine and the
same scars that I do. And I think it's this
powerful illustration of this metaphorical truth that, like, we all
(19:16):
have scars, but when we become okay with the fact
that scars are just these really special manifestations of pain
that we've overcome. That's when crazy cool things happen. But
I do know that even though it's my name on
the spines of those books and it is my face
(19:39):
that has been seen on TV, like, it's not about me.
It just happened to be me in my foot.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
We all have scars, she said, and there's special manifestations
of pain overcome. The story of Chloe Howard here American
story h
Host
Lee Habeeb
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