incandescence
A Profile on Natalee Righetti By: Laurel O’Such
While in P.E. class sopho-
more year, Natalee was doing the push-up test when her teacher told her, “you can’t do this” and laughed in her face. Natalee,with a paralysed left hand, wouldn’t take her disability as an excuse and responded with, “I can at least try, can’t I?” So, Natalee got down into the pushup position next to all of her peers and
proceeded to do the pushups. She later said to me that she didn’t do as well as she would’ve liked to do, but she did it to prove her teacher wrong.
Natalee is the daughter of
Dave Righetti, pitching coach for the San Francisco Giants. On July 19th, 1991, Natalee, Nicolette, and Wesley were
born, and every newspaper was wondering about the triplets that were born prematurely and via surrogacy to Dave and Kandice Righetti. The LA Times writer Marty Noble wrote, “Righetti Has New Perspective: Parenthood: Birth of triplets is cause for celebration.” In this article Righetti explained that complications were a concern. Mr. Righetti first stated Natalee
was having “typical complications that a premature baby has.” Later in the interview with Marty Noble, he says, “But I know (Natalee)
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is having trouble. It’s not easy.” Natalee was born with two bleeds in her brain, one on the right and another on the left. The left healed by itself, but the right never did, which paralyzed her left side. Natalee has a form or Cerebral Palsy known as hemiplegia that paralyses only certain
limbs, which for Natalee is her left arm and partially her leg (“Cerebral Palsy”). From the day they were born, while Mr. Righetti
good week or two or even three weeks that I even realized she had limited mobility.” Natalee is the type of person that if asked about she will explain,
was in the middle of a Giants vs. Mets game, he bragged about the strength that Natalee displayed. If you looked at her today you would believe she’s just a average young adult. Natalee lives with her disability but it doesn’t control her. William Blair, one of her previous teachers, stated, “It took me a
but otherwise she seems to keep quiet about it. It is not until you hear her story that she truly becomes an inspiration. Natalee has chosen to see the positives in her challenges and therefore has become a young adult that I look up to because of the fact that she is beautifully different.
Na-
talee Righetti’s bubbly attitude is apparent from the second you meet her. When I first met her in a cafe, she walked over with a sort of bounce in her step and a huge grin on her face as she looked at me hoping that I was the right person. We sat and talked for about two hours, when I originally told her it would be no more than thirty minutes. I see Natalee as a light. She is like a spark because in a way she is unexpected, she wears her heart on her sleeve and is open to whatever. A light is always directed, so a flashlight shows you what’s in front of you, much like Natalee, she has proved that she can move forward past anything. She accepts being partially paralysed and she says she’s thankful for it because it’s a constant reminder that you aren’t given anything; she has to take what she has and work from there. “I see it as the light at the end of the tunnel sort of thing. At the end each challenge, there could be a positive outcome, and it all
depends on how hard I work, or how hard you work, and the attitude you have when approaching it” (Natalee). Halogen, fluorescent, LED, Tungsten and etcetera light bulbs come in diversity.
shows her strength because not everything is perfect, yet she finds a way to make it all work.
Camp Everytown, a leadership
and diversity camp help in our area, was a key part in Natalee’s high school career. This was a trip for her to connect with kids from her school but also share her side of the story. During camp everyone participates in different activities to open your eyes about diversity, racism, and sexism. While Natalee was at camp she found a lunch simulation especially difficult, because it had to do with dis-
“you’re as capable as you allow yourself to be” -natalee The diversity by the light bulb doesn’t mean one is any less useful because they all give off light; although Natalee is not like many others because of her disability, she shows that she is not any less or any more than anyone else. The light shows strength with how many things have to be perfect for it to work, Natalee
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abilities. Boys and Girls would be blindfolded so they couldn’t see what they were eating, or their hands tied behind their back so they had to find alternative ways to eat, or have the inability to use their legs so they couldn’t retrieve food. This simulation stuck to Natalee at that moment she realized her abilities are much different than other peo-
ples.While others could walk away without a disability, she could not. This was the first time Natalee actually cried about her disability. She realized that the kid with his hand tied behind him who had trouble eating his food could after the simulation enjoy food with both hands. Natalee would never be able to do this. Only about 5.2 percent of children ages 5-17 in the U.S. are reported to have disabilities (Brault). Natalee took this experience away with her, back to her school, Mountain View High School, to help people understand what its like to have a disability. With the help of her English teacher, William Blair, they created Disability Awareness Day, where each class has a separate simulation for a different disability. For example, the teacher may mouth all the words to a lecture and mute a video to simulate being deaf, or ask the students to write with their non-dominant hand for the experience of Cerebral Palsy. When the class is over they would debrief. Blair communicates that it is “creating awareness, respect, and empa-
thy… based on greater awareness and more inclusion and more empowerment [which] comes from Natalee.” Natalee proved that Camp Everytown is a life changing experience. She brought her knowledge from camp back with her to apply to not only her life but also the lives of her peers. Natalee showed light because she took this experience that made her feel alone and turned it into a positive. Instead of keeping her feelings to herself about her disability she looked ahead to use that experience to help others learn and be educated on her daily struggles.
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huge part of Natalee’s life revolves around sports. She says she has this special connection because of her dad, saying, “I probably wouldn’t be in sports if my dad wasn’t who he is. It gives us a special bond.” But her siblings disagree. They stated that they come from just a very athletic family, therefore they think she just got the sports bug. Natalee, throughout her life, has played on various sports teams, but the one she con-
nected the most to was volleyball. Blair, Natalee’s sophomore and junior year English teacher, said seeing her on the court was an inspiration not only on an athletic level but more advanced because you could see this girl be very good at what she does inspite of her paralysis. Although Natalee played on the court with her abled teammates she realized after trying to play the same way that she would have to adapt because of her left arm. She describes how she passes the volleyball: “I decided it was time to forget about trying to blend in and do what worked best for me. I was ready to try bumping with one hand” (Righetti 82).
J
ust like the spark, Natalee had the ability to focus her strength in one thing. We see a lot of her success in sports where she could light the match. See what I did there? Match for a
flame and match for a volleyball game. Her brother, Wesley, and sister, Nicolette, both shared that through her passion for volleyball, she was addicted to the sport. She would play outside everyday for hours practicing to get better, no matter the weather. Natalee stated herself that she never left practice until she had bruises or burns on her legs or arms, to show her effort in volleyball. In a particular practice Natalee was having trouble with her hip which developed tendonitis, after pulling through for most of the practice she told her coach she was in too much pain and could not finish her liners. This was when her coach knew her pain was real, because, as she described, she never complained because it was important to
her to show her dedication to the sport. Natalee’s light is visible when we see her challenge her disability. She does, however, show her strength through passion which is very apparent. Although Natalee has an issue much different than most of us, we can easily connect with her despite her specific circumstance.
Natalee hopes to get her de-
gree in organizational leadership and work in the field of sports (did it again, field and sports) or with the disabled. Natalee hopes to somehow combine sports and the disabled in our community in her recent future. Yet, Natalee’s life dream is to be a mother and a wife. She values a family and sees that growing old with a person she loves and loving others more than she loves herself is her true dream.