The video begins with a young couple making their way into a physical rehabilitation center. Cole Sydnor’s hands, clenched into fists, push the wheels of his wheelchair forward, while his girlfriend, Charisma Jamison, walks alongside him.
Inside, she helps him onto a table. A team of trainers moves Cole, who is a quadriplegic, through a series of exercises and stretches before strapping him into a wearable robotic exoskeleton that wraps around his legs and torso.
“I actually can’t feel my legs,” he jokes to his mother behind the camera.
After a few minutes, Cole is on his feet while Charisma looks on, smiling.
“You’re so tall,” she says before coming in for their first-ever standing hug.
Cole then places his arms into braces attached to a walker. Two trainers support him as he takes one step, and then another, and then another. Cole walks across the room, out the door, down the hall and outside. Charisma is there every step of the way.
I first wrote about Cole for the University of Richmond alumni magazine, and his story has always been one of my favorites. I was thrilled to revisit it, and talk to Cole and Charisma about their successful YouTube channel that captures their life as an interracial, interabled couple.