Why is it that Paralympic wonders like Alexa Leary so connect with viewers who may just be tuning in for a few minutes of her remarkable year’s long fight to live life again?

It certainly has something to do with her beautifully unvarnished and passionate way with words.

You get a pure, straight take from a Paralympian. There are no agendas. There is no footy-speak trying to sidestep what a player might really feel.

“No comment”. You’ll never hear it from a Paralympian.

If you’ve faced death coming off a bike at high speed or been born with a disability, you say what the hell you like.

Another significant part is how humour plays such an important role. Here are Paralympians making us feel better and more comfortable because of the way they see life as a cup half-full with opportunities to explore.

I remember a long-time friend on a Paralympic team explaining the humour through a story en route to the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta.

Paralympic swimmer Rod Bonsack settled into his seat on the plane and wryly quipped: “Who gives a **** about leg room.”

Bonsack had none. Both his legs were severed above the knees in an aircraft accident a decade earlier.

Paralympians love taking the piss out of each other. David Evans won two golds at that same Paralympics in Atlanta.

To teammates, he was simply “Clock”, his nickname because he was born with one long arm and one short arm.

Society’s acceptance and understanding of people with disabilities has been advanced immeasurably by the performances and attitudes of our Paralympic stars.

Sport Australia Hall of Fame swimmer Priya Cooper, who was born with cerebral palsy, frames it perfectly and has repeatedly done so through her public speaking on the topic “Success Is A Choice.

“The mission is to teach people how to have a gold medal consciousness in whatever they’re doing,” Cooper has explained in the past.

“Just to teach people how to have that and flick the switch to go from knowing they want to do something that’s great to actually doing it and taking those steps. It’s just persistence in overcoming the setbacks.”

She delivers that message for corporate types, business people, government decision-makers and sporting types with humour, inspiration and sincerity.

Fellow InQueensland columnist Madonna King has written a wonderful piece, To Hell And Back, on Leary’s comeback from a horrific bike accident.

The Paralympics are a landscape like no other. The life stories hit you in the face and the heart.

An Englishman who lost his legs in a terrorist bombing. An adopted Vietnamese-born youngster who survived a bomb her father strapped to himself.

You can’t help but think more deeply about how trivial certain issues really are in life by comparison.

Now-retired wheelchair athlete Kurt Fearnley put that in perspective at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast after finishing a heat.

“Life’s great,” he said.

This from an inspirational figure who did the Kokoda Track. He crawled it.

We all saw Ellie Cole in her role as poolside interviewer at the Paris Olympics.

As a Paralympic swimmer, her great joy was receiving messages from parents who had seen a spark awake in their own child with a disability. They finally had role models so they could strive themselves because, Cole explained, she never got to see swimmers with a disability on TV in her youth.

“I’d also get messages from people saying they were going to get off the couch and exercise because seeing a para-athlete race, they realised they had no real excuse,” Cole said.

In a way, making para-normal is the wonderful outcome of mass viewing events like the Paralympics. You are always watching what people can do, rather than what they can’t.

Leary has an infectious way of explaining her emotions. Even her f-bomb of delight when hitting the wall to win this week endeared her even more.

After setting that world record to win her gold medal in the 100m freestyle S9 this week in Paris, she enthralled Channel Nine’s Karl Stefanovic.

“Of course, the gold medal. That was a wow for me. I was quite impressed,” she glowed.

She called her traumatic brain injury an “invisible disability” in some ways because it is not always so apparent.

It’s always there. She works with a behaviour coach and occupational therapist. “They work every single day to make me have a happy day,” she said poignantly.

“Happiness” is exactly what Leary and her Paralympic teammates are spreading.

We don’t even know how much we need it until we accidentally switch to the channel showing achievements that go way beyond medals.

Thank you.

Jim Tucker has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.