I ended up chatting with a young fellow, to me that’s around 30, with a disability on a ride to work. He asked me what I did for a living and then told me about his job, about which he was quite proud. Without even lowering his voice to become conspiratorial, he openly said that […]
I just had a food accident. On the trip from fork to gob there is a bit of territory over my shirt that has to be traversed. A piece of yolk leapt from it’s bed of toast and landed on my shirt just beside the buttons, near the top. I quickly brushed it away and […]
I’m glad I started weight lifting. Now don’t think of me as anything more than a sit in the wheelchair and lift 25 pound dumbbells 30 reps, 10 at a time, in 8 different ways kind of guy. That’s for me, weight lifting. But besides the benefit of being able to push myself further and […]
I was startled when I saw his name of the ‘Today’s Birthdays’ list on my FaceBook page. Of course, I realized, FaceBook doesn’t know that he died last year. I clicked on his name and was taken to his page. It’s still there and several people used the opportunity of his birthday to write about […]
I remember, years ago, when I was called to be on a panel discussing Special Olympics. It was to be a sports panel and the question being debated boiled down to: “Special Olympics, it’s cute but is it sport?” This was to be on the CBC on an early Sunday morning. I agreed to be […]
Warning, I’m going to quote a conversation that I got pulled into with two people with intellectual disabilities. A boyfriend and a girlfriend were discussing who they were, not to each other, but to the world. I’m going to use the words they used as risk of offending every reader. But to be true […]
“I can do it myself, mom,” he said. “Oh, I don’t mind,” she said, picking up his tray and taking it over to empty it’s contents in the trash and then stacking it where trays are left for pick up. I don’t know if she saw his face, I doubt it, because people who think […]
She might have been twelve, maybe thirteen, certainly old enough to know her own mind and draw her own boundaries. She was with her father and two younger brothers. I was in a long lineup waiting to pay and they were, on my right, in the bakery section of the store. They had stopped because […]
I am extraordinary! Let me tell you how I know: Yesterday I used an elevator and upon entry saw a bright pink post-it-note stuck to the back wall. It was small but its colour drew attention. I typically back into elevators but decided to go straight in because I was curious to read what was […]
The little wheelchair symbol had worn off the centre of the table, granted, but as it’s the only one of two tables, amongst over a hundred, you’d imagine that it would be easy to notice that two chairs are missing. But maybe I just know what that means because that’s the kind of table that […]
