\u201cSo, do you have MS or Parkinson\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n
I glance over at the woman who I am helping. I straighten up from bending over a change machine, trying to coax a stubborn, bedraggled dollar bill into the feeder for the fifth time. My hands slightly tremble from frustration and my disability. There are happy, chatting children around us so I raise my voice just a bit to answer, \u201cNo. I have a mild form of cerebral palsy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She smiles. \u201cOh, and what do you contribute to the fact that you are doing so well?\u201d<\/p>\n
What a pleasant question. Folks often don\u2019t ask questions of me and my disability. I am sure there are several reasons why. But I honestly don\u2019t mind talking about it. The disability has shaped my life just the way being an only child has or being a writer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I did have lots of physical therapy as a child.\u201d In addition, I was taught to type on a big, fat, electronic blue typewriter \u2014 before there were computers \u2014 when I was nine years old. I was also in Special Olympics, Special Education for both second and third grades and adaptive P.E. But I don\u2019t give all of those details. TMI for a stranger.<\/p>\n
The woman, probably in her 60s with obviously colored hair and an angelic face, responds, \u201cI hope you know God can save you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angelic, my ass.<\/p>\n
As I helped her complete her transaction, I just nodded and \u201chmmm\u201ded a lot as she continued to tell me that God could save me and that she would pray for me. I don\u2019t ever recall the need throughout my life to be \u201csaved.\u201d<\/p>\n
After this incident, I recalled one many years ago, probably in my early 20s, where I was explaining to a new acquaintance about my disability. She told me, point blank, \u201cYou\u2019re not disabled. You\u2019re not in a wheelchair.\u201d So I had no right to use such a word as disability<\/em> to talk about myself.<\/p>\n Another incident. Also in my 20s. I went to a non-profit organization to get career assessment guidance. The career guidance counselor\u2019s stellar advice? Tell any prospective employers that I had a disability as soon as I talked to them because my voice \u201cmade me sound retarded.\u201d (Note, I learned later on as I was researching a college paper about the Americans with Disabilities Act that the counselor\u2019s advice was pretty much the wrong<\/em> thing to do.)<\/p>\n Finally, I was doing group work in college and one day the group members started talking about life goals, desires, wishes, etc. I shared that at a young age I really wanted to be a dancer. It took many years and some hard knocks, but I accepted that I would never be a dancer. The CP disturbs my balance and muscle control thereby interrupting any graceful pirouette or a quick two-step. When a girl in the group who happened to be in a wheelchair shared her life dreams, she was sure to look directly at me when she said, \u201cAnd I can do anything<\/em> I want to. Nothing stops me!\u201d<\/p>\n What, is this a competition?<\/p>\n After college graduation, I decided I was going to write a romance novel. A friend of mine got me hooked on reading the genre and she later commented that I should write one. Sure! Why not? Piece of cake\u2026<\/p>\n Not!<\/p>\n My heroine had a spinal cord injury and so I spent years doing research, asking questions, fine tuning her background. I also researched the genre and writing itself. In the process, an early draft was sent to an editor who had a very interesting response.<\/p>\n I\u2019m truly sorry to disagree. But no one mocks people in wheelchairs. My sister contracted polio at the age of 5. She went from a wheelchair to crutches to leg braces. No one mocked her, especially her classmates.<\/em><\/p>\n Great. That is a lovely story and it\u2019s great to know bullying and harassment was not a factor in this person\u2019s life. But that does not cover every person\u2019s life. It was a factor in my character\u2019s life \u2014 and mine \u2014 so to downplay it, to define<\/em> it by someone else\u2019s life, is wrong. In 2005 I published The Butterfly\u2019s Dance<\/em>, bullying teens and all!<\/p>\n After almost 40 years and many more stories like the ones above, I have learned that I have to make my own definition. I live in this body; I know when I have good days and bad days. A task can be easy for me one day and difficult the next. I have learned there are just some things I have to ask help with to do. And my dreams have morphed into others. I have been to college, had a couple of jobs, been a supervisor, written dozens of freelance articles and a couple of self-published novels. I have to accumulate all the data from these varying experiences and use them to define myself. Otherwise, others will do it for me.<\/p>\n All you writers out there, keep this in mind. Disability can be defined by a quick search on Google. There can be a number of websites that give definitions and examples of a myriad of disabilities and medical issues. And after finding all that data, mostly forget it. Because creating a character with a disability begins with the person. Define your character first. I dare ya!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have to accumulate all the data from these varying experiences and use them to define myself. Otherwise, others will do it for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"genre":[],"age_category":[],"disability":[104],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7052,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/7052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}