Dear Barbara:
I have, from time to time, received various replies to my little
vignettes which I have posted on the Listserv. (These have been most
welcomed!) But there is a story I would like to tell, which I am not sure
will be appreciated or even understood by most people. It concerns a slap
in the face of reality which I experienced recently and does not make me
proud of myself. I thought I would ask you to read it first to see whether
or not it is suitable material for the Listserv.
This forum is immensely valuable to all the people who use it. I am
extremely grateful for the privilige of being among its members, and I don't
want to do or say anything that will hurt anyone.
I couldn't move any faster across the field from the parking lot if I
tried. Perhaps it was the lazy, sapping heat, or the listless trees, or a
day filled with the gymnastic stress of just keeping up ("You're a child of
the '90's! Stress? Just do it!"). Or maybe my Parkinson's disease was tying
my legs together to make me appreciate the beauty of this warm summer's
night. But I arrived at the high school graduation ceremony just a
smidgeon too late to find a seat.
There were some seats, of course. If I wanted to clamber over sweaty
bodies with my own sweaty stiffening body. And yes, as always, there were
plenty of seats in the handicapped section.
Some time after I was diagnosed, I found myself passing briefly through
a jovial stage. It must be one of the sub sections to the denial platform.
I saw it clearly when a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with a brain
tumor. She was at a party, and had just been told the tumor was inoperable
and that she would spend the next unknown number of months in radiation and
chemo therapy. She was the life of the party, just spilling over with brain
tumor jokes, everyone laughing, exchanging cautious glances of "Is it ok to
do this?" and "It must be. Wendy's getting such a bang out of it."
My own particular denial giggle concerned a sometime in the future
application for a handicapped parking permit.....and how I, too, would be
able to jauntily drive into the special sections and get all the perks.
Around me parents streamed through the auditorium, all of us bent on the
single purpose of finding a seat. In spite of the emotional drain of which
I was spending the last drop, I was still able to feel a rush of anger
seethe through my veins as one of my colleagues kindly suggested: "Why don't
you sit in the handicapped section? That way you won't have to do the
stairs."
Beneath my cheerful, "Oh stairs are no problem." I roared deep inside
where no one but God could hear me, "I'll bloody well decide for myself
when I"ll do the stairs and when I won't. Don't you tell me to sit in the
handicapped section!"
Again, one moment too late. The last aisle seat was being taken just as I
climbed the last step. Oh, God, the only place left is the handicapped
section.
It was already filling with the aged, the infirm, and the disabled. One
man, fastened down securely, seemed stretched out across his wheelchair,
into the rigidity of a torture victim, frozen in perpetual immobility, his
hands carved from stone in an eternal gesture of appeal, his head lolling to
one side, emanating the presence of decay, disease and death.
I ripped off the paper displaying the wheelchair logo attached to the
seat . I crushed it in my hand and sat down. Why should I have to sit
here? Why should someone, desiring to be "helpful" suggest that I sit here?
I'm not like these others. I'm different. I'm ........... no, I'm not
like them at all. I'm...............
And then it started to dawn, with the colour and intensity of the red
that glowed from my face. I had "known" handicapped people. I had taught
them as students in special programs. I had creatively engaged with them in
solving problems of integrating in the able-bodied society. I had "loved"
them. Had reflected all the smarmy sentiments such as: "Oh they are such a
value to society, you know. They really call forth the compassion which
makes us all human, don't you think?"
And then I had locked up my classroom and gone back to my "real" life - a
life without afflictions, without distinctions that separated me from the
"normal" world, as it did them. A life which could still separate "Me" from
"Them". Where if I didn't want to think about them, I didn't have to.
Where they were somebody else's problem. Where I could move into or out
their lives at my own will. Where compassion was an option. Where my
humanity and concern for all mankind had a start/stop button. And where I
harboured hidden beliefs that in fact by my being whole, healthy, smart and
competant, my life was inherently better, of higher quality, of greater
value than there's. I glanced over the anomolous group filling the seats
around me and I hated them.
I got up, and with the declining power still in my legs, I left. I
could still choose. I could still pass for someone who is mobile. I waded
through the heat back to the car and I cried. I cried for my shallowness,
for the loss of my humane spirit, for the realization that I am far more
afflicted (and have been) than any of the disabled kids I have taught. I
cried because I had always been wrong about the inherent value and dignity
of a human life. I cried because I have so much to learn, and so little
time to learn it, before I will need the special considerations given to
handicapped people. Where I will be expected to be thankful for these
considerations, where I will demand them as my right to quality of life. And
I will learn to do these things because this body which is not my own body,
will require them. But inside my spirit will rage and rage and rage.
