I Can Too

Recently, I noticed an obituary in the newspaper for a former coworker of mine.  Dan was delightful to work with.  He seemed to always have a smile on his face.  He was agreeable and low maintenance.  He was smart--the director of his bureau, with, I would say, about thirty-five subordinates.  Although he had gray hair, he was still working.  Cheerfully.  I cannot remember a moment when he seemed down or said something contrary.

And he did all of this from a wheelchair.

It's been two decades since I left that job.  I'm glad to know that Dan was able to have a long life.

I've reflected a lot since then on what impact Dan made on my life.  For sure, it wasn't huge.  We had the same boss and attended the same meetings for over four years, but we weren't close friends.  We never confided in each other, nothing like that.

I am, however, impressed by people who do good in the world.  I'm even more impressed when they seem to do it easily, competently, and cheerfully.  And I'm most impressed when they have triumphed over great obstacles in order to do so.

Dan had had polio as a child.  He had been in a wheelchair for a long time before I met him. It doesn't seem to have held him back.

Now, sure, some people's disabilities do prevent them from doing the things they want to do--no question about that at all.  Whenever I see someone disabled seemingly just as able as others, though, I am really inspired to do more myself.  And complain less.

My friend's brother's blindness didn't seem to hold him back from anything he wanted to achieve.  There were two people in my master's degree program who were deaf, and another one who had been born without a right hand.  It was amazing to me that they were doing all the same things I was doing, and succeeding just as well at them.  Maybe it shouldn't have been.

I have another friend whose spouse is in a wheelchair.  It has been interesting to see what, for them, it is like to have to deal with that struggle.  According to them, it's not easy to get one of those motorized carts in the grocery store, because able people who are tired use them, too.  My friend often has to search high and low to locate one.  Pushing both a wheelchair and a shopping cart around a store is a challenge I would not relish.  And people don't often help.  They push past.  They hurry ahead to the checkout line, seemingly afraid to get stuck behind that train.

But, really, the people struggling with the extra machinery have lives, too.  They want to get out of the store just as fast as others do.  Don't they have just as much right to approach the line without people darting in front of them?

I have to admit that I have probably behaved like the darters.  It's so much easier to think about the differences among us than it is to think about the similarities.  Just today, I noticed there was a new woman at work who was wearing a strange kind of hat on her head.  Her face was beautiful.  I imagine she has beautiful blond hair under that hat.  But what if she doesn't?  Maybe she's been a cancer patient.  It's none of my business.

Even though I don't know her, I felt the urge to ask her why she was wearing a hat that covered all her hair.  I didn't, of course.  But I did stop to ask myself, what is that?  Why on earth, when I know it is rude to ask people personal questions, would I even want to?  I think about all the asinine comments and questions I endured during my pregnancies--and even some pregnancy-related questions I endured when I was NOT pregnant, ahem--and I cannot believe that I would be driven to ask someone, a stranger, even, why she is different from me.  (One neighbor's first utterance to me was to ask whether I wanted my baby.)

I decided that it must be this: we want those around us to be familiar, to be similar enough to us that we don't feel threatened or uncomfortable around them.  If we notice a difference, we want to know about that.  Why do you cover your head with a hat?  Why are your children a different race?  How do you feel about that baby you're carrying around inside of you?  We naturally want more information so that we can figure out how to deal with the unexpected difference.

But we have to stop ourselves.  We need to focus on what is the same.  This woman is now working in my building.  How is her job going to be similar to mine?  Will she be on my team?  How can I help her feel comfortable there?  These are the things we should focus on--the similarities.  In every place.

And how we can all contribute to the whole effort.  How we can honor and respect and admire each other's efforts and accomplishments.  How we are benefited by and can benefit each other.

We all have struggles, and what they are varies.  But this is what knowing each other does for us.  If Dan could live a full and successful life, if he could exude joy, I can, too.