This week's inspiring Albertan is a single mother, artist, dart champion, and teacher who has taken a devastating loss and turned it into a triumph.
Everyone has difficult situations to deal with in their lives, but for some, the situations are much more frequent and severe.
Anna Jarmics has more than her share of hardships in her life, but has managed to thrive despite them.
Growing up in Hungary during World War II, she remembers when a Nazi soldier threw a hand grenade and it landed between her younger brother and sister in a sandbox.
Jarmics picked up the grenade and tried to throw it back, but unfortunately she slipped and fell.
As a single mom with four kids and without hands, Jarmics landed in Toronto to begin a new life in 1968.
She then applied for a job as cleaning staff at a hospital.
When Jarmics went for an interview, everyone was sure she could not do the job.
"Let me work two weeks, I said. If you're not satisfied, if I can't do your job, what you wanted, I said, I leave without pay. I worked there for five and a half years."
When her children grew up, three of them moved to Calgary.
Jarmics joined them and spent her time as an artist, with much of her work ending up on greeting cards.
As well, she started playing darts, and is now a double medalist at the Alberta 55-Plus Winter Games.
At the YWCA, Jarmics is an inspiration to her English as a Second Language students.
"When she comes into our classroom, the class shines," says Silvana Saccomani of the Calgary YWCA.
For the way she took a devastating loss and turned it into a gain, Anna Jarmics is CTV's Inspiring Albertan this week.
