Jawana Johnson remembered lying on the couch, eight months pregnant and watching a television special about the mother of a baby born with partial arms and legs.
The mother, too ashamed to show her child in public, cloaked her baby from head to toe. When the baby’s cries began to draw attention in a grocery store, the mortified mother dropped her groceries, grabbed her baby and fled.
And another mortified soon-to-be mother began to weep.
“And I cried,” Johnson said. “I cried because I didn’t understand why the lady would feel the way she did. It’s her baby.”
A month later, after she gave birth to Maya Imani Johnson, her thoughts flashed back to that evening on the couch.
“At that moment, everyone believes their child is going to come out with both hands and feet, all their fingers and toes,” Jawana Johnson said.
Doctors told Jawana Johnson that her daughter had been born without a left arm due to a birth defect called congenital band syndrome. Her greatest fears began to mount in a series of unanswerable questions.
“I remember my shock at the moment,” she said. “I was wondering how would she grow up? How would people treat her? How would she feel about herself?”
If her daughter's life was to be a series of setbacks, Jawana Johnson still has yet to identify them.
Maya Imani Johnson, now 13, has played every sport from baseball to soccer. She plays the piano and recently learned how to paddle a canoe and went rock climbing. Her passion remains dribbling and driving on the basketball court.
“When I had my child, I was not ashamed of her,” Jawana Johnson said. “Not one bit. There came a point shortly thereafter that I had to make up in my mind that I was going to raise her to be as normal as anybody else.”
Despite those efforts, Maya Imani Johnson has grown into a teenager who is not just like everybody else.
She has given speeches at youth summer camps, worked out with the Harlem Globetrotters and made an appearance on the Rachael Ray show. And the question about her struggles simply elicits a matter-of-fact reply.
“It hasn’t been tough,” she said.
After attending her first youth amputee camp last month, Maya Imani Johnson enrolled in Young Chefs Academy School, realizing her dream of attending culinary school.
On the basketball court, she has even developed her own unique way of playing. She has learned to scoop the ball off the court with her foot and has developed a deft one-handed shot.
Maya Imani Johnson said she is merely finding new fields to compete in. But to others, she is conquering frontiers.
“They say that I inspire them,” she said. “Because when people say I can’t do stuff, I do anyway. It makes me happy that people support me.”
Maya Imani Johnson has played on numerous recreational and club teams and still recalls the day she scored her career-high 7 points for her basketball team.
“My favorite memory of basketball is helping the team win and shooting the last basket,” she said.
For the first time, she will try out for her school basketball team at JJ Daniell Middle School in Marietta. Her greatest dream, however, has not yet been realized. Maya wants to play in the WNBA, just like her favorite player, the Atlanta Dream’s Angel McCoughtry.
“That’s mostly the main dream,” she said. “I’m still thinking.”
Recalling her greatest fear as a mother, Jawana Johnson thought back on all the questions when she first held her daughter. Thirteen years later, most of those once daunting questions have been answered.
“I really can’t pinpoint a fear I have for her,” she said. “At this time in our lives, I believe I have the normal fears that a normal mother of a teenager has.”
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