BY VICTORIA DAY Contributing Writer
The sky’s your limit…does not apply to Jen Bricker. As a young girl, she wanted to prove that the ground was not her limit, even though that is what everyone may have thought.
Jen Bricker was born with a random birth defect; she was born without legs. Without legs, you ask? What can someone do– what can anyone do without legs? There is a mile long list she has—and it is still growing!––to answer that question. With the help, love, and support of her adopted parents and siblings, she played basketball, softball, and volleyball. Without legs, she even learned to swim! Above all of her other achievements, she became a fantastic, professional aerialist.
As a child, she idolized a young Romanian gymnast on television, which initially led to her interest in gymnastics. While observing this amazing gymnast, she always told her parents: “Don’t we look-alike? Don’t you think we look-alike?” As time went on, the two girls’ similarities grew. Jen’s mother caught the gymnast’s name: Dominique Moceanu.
Something struck her odd about her last name, and so she turned to the adoption papers. Sure enough, a man with the last name Moceanu had signed the papers, and at age sixteen, Jen discovered the most incredible thing: she had a sister! In fact, she had two, and one of them had been her childhood idol, Dominique Moceanu!
After this shocking discovery, Jen ended up writing her heart and soul into a letter to Dominique, enclosing documentation and papers about the adoption process and photos and that they might very well be sisters. It was received in December of 2007, and as it turned out, they were really sisters. After much confrontation and many questions they closed the distance and today are extremely close to one another.
These two ladies really have a story to tell. To learn more, check out any of Jen Bricker’s online interviews, or even her sister Dominique’s book, Off Balance: A Memoir.
