because disabilities do not define

words by REBECCA MEIDINGER photography by STACY KENNEDY PHOTOGRAPHY hair and makeup by MERESA SCHROEDER : 218-841-2646 : @millionhairbymeresa

When was the last time you had a conversation with somebody who caused you to want to be the very best version of yourself possible? Someone who, just by being him/herself, caused you to want to try harder, reach higher, run faster, dream bigger, live larger, love better? A conversation with Brynn Duncan would do exactly that. If you caught a glimpse of this 17-year-old beauty racing down the slopes, you’d never guess that just ten years ago her parents were fiercely praying that their daughter, who now is training for a spot on the 2022 Paralympics Ski Team, would simply survive. Over the last decade, surrounded by her family of cheerleaders, Duncan has chosen every single day to rise up, face obstacles head on, and live in the confidence that while disability may be a fact of life, it will never define her.

On August 18, 2008, Dixie and Cody Duncan received the phone call that every parent fears. Their 7-year-old daughter Brynn had been in a horrific car crash that resulted in a snapped spinal cord as well as severe internal bleeding and organ damage. Thinking back to that day, Dixie Duncan recalls how, prior to getting in the car, her daughter wouldn’t stop kissing her goodbye. Despite her young age, Brynn Duncan remembers her own apprehension too: “Even though I was so young, I distinctly remember having that gut-feeling before I got in the car, like I knew something was going to happen.”

After being ambulanced to Fargo and then flown to Minneapolis, Duncan spent the following days and weeks overcoming one obstacle after another as surgeons worked to repair her internal damage. “At that point,” explains Duncan’s mom, “we weren’t focused on Brynn walking … we were just focused on Brynn living. That was our prayer.” Brynn Duncan’s family continually covered her hospital bed with prayer and covered her room in frogs — frog pictures, frog balloons, frog stuffed animals — as a constant reminder to be “fully reliant on God” (F.R.O.G). After one particularly miraculous discovery of a blood clot that nearly took her life, one of Duncan’s surgeons remarked, “This girl is only alive because someone up there is

MOST PEOPLE SEE MY DAUGHTER IN A WHEELCHAIR AND FEEL SORRY FOR HER. WE SEE BRYNN IN A WHEELCHAIR AND SEE A MIRACLE.

SHE IS MIRACLES UPON MIRACLES.

— DIXIE DUNCAN

watching out for her.” Setback after setback and miracle after miracle, the Duncans’ constant mantra was, “My God is bigger.” “As physicians discussed various risks or complications with us, that phrase just went through my brain every day,” says Dixie Duncan. “It kept me going. Most people see my daughter in a wheelchair and feel sorry for her — ‘Oh poor girl, she’s in a wheelchair.’ We see Brynn in a wheelchair and see a miracle. She is miracles upon miracles.”

Then came the day when this sweet 7-year-old girl, after a week of lying in her hospital bed, realized that she couldn’t feel her legs. At her mom’s insistence, no medical personnel or family members had yet discussed Duncan’s paralysis with her or around her, but Duncan knew something was wrong.

“I had tubes and wires running everywhere, but I couldn’t feel anything on my legs. I remember pinching my thigh as hard as I could with my fingernails and knowing then that my legs didn’t work.” As her little girl turned to her and whispered, “Am I disabled?” Duncan’s very wise mother simply replied, “Honey, we don’t know yet.” How true those words would become! They didn’t know and couldn’t have imagined then the tremendous capabilities within her, despite the inability to use her legs. During the following months of rehabilitation, Dixie Duncan refused to let her daughter say the word “can’t.”

“You can tell me you’re tired. You can tell me you’re sick. You can tell me it hurts. But you can’t tell me you can’t. You can,

Brynn. You have to do things differently, but you can do it.” And while there were very hard days of being overwhelmed and depressed as Duncan adjusted to the loss of her legs and activities she loved like dancing and gymnastics, she has certainly risen up to every challenge. With her parents and sisters constantly cheering her on and her faith that God is always near her and for her, Duncan has exceeded every expectation, never letting her disabilities overtake her abilities. “I mean, I am ‘disabled’ in that I can’t use my legs, but I’m certainly not going to let that disable my life.”

Three months after the accident Duncan returned to school as a second grader. A month later she was invited by the local organization Hope Inc. to play sled hockey. Duncan remembers the joy of being able to be on the ice with other kids who had disabilities. “They got me. They knew what I was going through. And we got to skate!” Hope Inc. became an integral part of Duncan’s life, and she has continued to play hockey with the Hope Hurricanes for the last ten years. The following winter, at age 9, Duncan defied her disability yet again by going downhill skiing. Having enjoyed downhill skiing in the past, the whole family rallied around Duncan as she experimented for the first time with a mono ski at Powder Ridge near St. Cloud, Minnesota. Later that winter, Duncan participated in the Great Lakes Mono-Ski Madness and Race Camp, hosted by the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Center in Duluth. There, Duncan fell in love with alpine racing.

From that point on, Duncan returned annually to Mono Ski Madness Camp and took nearly every opportunity she could to hit the slopes, which is easier said than done when you live here in the flatlands — the terrain of the Red River Valley doesn’t quite cut it for an Alpine racer. Eventually, due to her spunk, determination and cheerful attitude, invitations started coming, doors started opening, and Duncan’s dreams began unfolding before her eyes. Partnering with a coach from

Minneapolis and various ski clubs around the country, at age 13 Duncan started traveling, training and racing. By age 14, with a mix of nerves and excitement, unhindered by any so-called “disabilities,” Duncan was cruising through airports solo. Often unable to travel along due to their careers, Duncan’s parents found a great ally in technology. “Thank goodness for cell phones!” exclaims the brave (albeit nervous) mom. “She is in constant contact with me until she’s on the plane and then once again at her next gate. I love flightaware.com, which allows me to track where she is in the air.” In 2015 at a Ski Spectacular event in Breckinridge, Colorado, Duncan met her current coach, Erik, from the National Sports Center for the Disabled, the organization with whom she now skis.

As if traveling for one competitive sport wasn’t enough, Duncan’s love of sled hockey had also grown over the years. When she was 14, Duncan traveled to Maine to try-out for the US Women’s Sled Hockey Team — and made it! She traveled and competed for two years with that team, while also playing with our local Hope Hurricanes, who won national championships at both the 2017 and 2018 USA ne of the greatest joys of Duncan’s life came last winter when she was chosen by the National Ability Center out of Utah to travel to Pyeongchang, South Korea, not only as a spectator for the 2018 Paralympics, but also as ski mentor for kids with disabilities. For three days, young adult skiers from the US taught Korean children with disabilities to ski, while also training Korean coaches to coach kids with disabilities. Beaming with joy, Duncan remembers the smile of an 8-year-old boy as he raced down the mountain. “For a child with disabilities in Korea, they don’t think they’ll ever have opportunities to do normal things again. So, being able to teach a child that he can do it, encouraging him to just try it even though he was so scared, and then seeing his huge smile and hearing him shout, ‘Again! Again!’ as he crossed the finish line … that was just the best thing ever.” Now, as we near the ski season once again, Duncan has her eyes on the 2022 games in Beijing, hoping to go as a competitor this time. Training with the National Sports Center for the Disabled out of Winter Park, Colorado, Duncan intends to spend more time in the mountains this winter, hitting the slopes and perfecting her art. To help make her Paralympic goals a reality, Duncan is seeking local business sponsorships and partners.

Disabled Hockey Festival. Because traveling for two sports took such a toll on the traditional school schedule, Duncan made the decision to leave Moorhead High School and complete high school online. Participation in two competitive winter sports takes quite a toll on her body too. “Falling hurts on a mono ski … a lot. When we crash, we have a 60 pound contraption strapped to us that crashes with us. When I fall, everything in me hurts.” Laughing, Duncan recalls last winter when she dislocated her right shoulder in a massive ski crash in Mammoth, California, and was told by her doctors that she “absolutely could not” compete in the national hockey tournament two weeks later. “But of course I went and played anyway,” she laughs.

Despite all of her accomplishments and medals, Duncan is also very real and open about her struggles. Her ability to be vulnerable and connect with others is one of the things that make this superstar so very real and loveable. “The truth is, even though I get to do all this amazing stuff, I’m still grieving the loss of my legs. I’ll always grieve the loss of my legs. It’s kind of a different kind of grief, because I carry my legs around with me everywhere I go. Everyday. Every flight of stairs. Every dance. Every doorway. It’s a constant reminder of what I lost.” Yet, in the midst of the trials and adversity of the last decade, Duncan says that the promise of Romans 8:28 has carried her through the times of suffering: “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Certainly, even in the midst of the suffering and pain that she’s endured, a great plan is unfolding before her eye — a plan that will include, but will never be defined by, disability. Day after day, Brynn Duncan is rising up and racing down.

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