Three Decades of Fun with Zach

The dashing, young Zach Anner

My son, Zach, is turning thirty today and that’s a pretty significant number. One of the ones where you sit back and assess where you’ve gotten to thus far, how your accomplishments match up to the rest of the world’s and where you still need to go. No pressure, just evaluate and judge yourself and figure out how you’re going to improve on things for the next thirty or so years.

I’m the mom, not the judge, so if all Zach had done and was going to do is sit and smile and laugh his infectious laugh, I’d be really fine with that, as long as it met his standards for happiness and fulfillment. But the person I gave birth to had plans and dreams and has already accomplished quite a bit for a person his age, or any age, for that matter, so let's go back to the beginning and retrace our steps.

It all started on a cool November 17^th evening in 1984 when I was home with my 19 month old son, Aarau, and started to feel a little back pain. I was seven months pregnant with an unknown alien in my womb who decided it would be fun to come out and get this party started two months early. The alien would later be known as “Zach,” and when he was unceremoniously plopped on my belly after three hours of hard labor, (I know, only three, but it hurt!) he lifted his little head and looked around, surveying the doors and windows, plotting his next move after realizing his escape to this cold, light-drenched world had only landed him a few feet from his previous surroundings. This was his first attempt to get away from me. It did not work.

 He was put in a box. I think they called it an incubator, an especially small prison for babies planning to crawl out of the hospital when no one’s looking and have underdeveloped lungs because of their premature births. Weighing in at a whopping 3 pounds, 7 ounces, Zach needed to be maintained in an artificial womb after abandoning the real one, where he could get fat and develop like he would’ve if he’d done the right thing and been born a little later. Now he had a heart monitor, tubes and needles sticking everywhere and little bruises from blood oxygen tests. I wasn’t allowed to hold him or feed him, breast milk had to be pumped and frozen, then thawed and delivered through a feeding tube so he wouldn’t lose calories by suckling. A rough beginning by any standards.

After five weeks in the Intensive Care Nursery, he came home with a heart monitor just in time for Christmas, weighing a little under five pounds. He was about the size of a very skinny football and his brother immediately took to him, referring to his heart monitor as “Zachy’s T.V.” and turning it off. So that was his first accomplishment, surviving his premature birth and making it home after a long hospital stay where he could live a normal life with his family.

Not so normal. His first year was filled with failures to meet every developmental milestone imaginable. He also screamed and cried inconsolably for hours on end which I later learned was an indication of neurological damage, (no Internet in ’84) but he had such a charming personality when he wasn’t crying and such apparent language abilities (I think he was putting sentences together by the time he was one) that we were able to live in comfortable denial that everything was okay and he was just “catching up” until he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at fourteen months.

Fast forward to 29 years later.

A lot has happened since that diagnosis. I think Zach’s first sentence was “I want to be independent” and he’s done a lot to make that happen. He attended college in Buffalo until he escaped to The Disney College Program for a semester in Orlando, first time away from home, broken wheelchairs, hurricanes, every bad and good thing imaginable. He then went to Austin, Texas, knowing absolutely no one, and attended film school where he met friends who produced comedy shows and webseries with him. He then posted his famous audition video and went on a reality show (Your Own Show) and won his own show from Oprah (Rollin’ with Zach). When that show was canceled, he immediately hosted another show (Riding Shotgun) where he traveled across the country using suggestions and meeting people from the Reddit community along the way. He then moved to Los Angeles for a year where he filmed with Soul Pancake (Have a Little Faith) and his own youtube series, (Workout Wednesdays). And along the way he made more friends, had great adventures, and inspired people to lead better lives.

I’ve had the privilege of watching Zach address hundreds of people in cities throughout the country where he makes them laugh and makes them think. He doesn’t have to say much about what having a disability is like because his advocacy is his life. He shows through his humor that using a wheelchair and not being able to walk is not a big thing for him. It’s just one of the many things that can be a struggle and has very little to do with who he is as a person. But I don’t have to tell you about that because he’s writing his own book which will be published next year (If at Birth You Don't Succeed...) and you can see it for yourself when you watch his youtube videos.

He’s doing what we all want to do, using his life to inspire others, changing perceptions through example, and living his dreams by having meaningful work. And building great relationships, being creative and doing what he loves to do most, making people laugh.

Zach is turning thirty today and I won’t be at his birthday party because he’ll be in Austin with friends (and his brother) at The Alamo Draft House screening the long-awaited completion of their mockumentary webseries, "The Wingmen." His girlfriend will be baking him a cake. There’s a lot to celebrate.

Happy Birthday, Zach! I hope I get to stick around to see what the next 30 years hold for you. I can’t wait to see what you do next!