#Disability Say The Word

It was a rainy and blustery day in Ocean City and our plans for going out for a walk along the bay or the ocean blew away in the wind. After getting to our room and meeting with organizers, Joe and I went for a tea in the pub. We managed to find a table by the window and sat comfortable and warm and watched the waves crash on the beach and the wind whip throw the palms. It was wild and wonderful and in all ways beautiful. We felt blessed to just be there.

Suddenly we were approached by a woman sitting at the table behind us, she assumed great authority and she placed one hand on Joe’s shoulder and one on my wheelchair. She started chatting with us about what we do and why we were at the hotel. Then she turns to me and asked how long I’d been “differently abled.” My spine stiffened. I’d never been called that before. I’d heard it used, of course, but never in direct reference to me.

She said that she was trying to be politically correct and asked if she’d got it right. I told her that she hadn’t got it right that the term was simply “disabled” or, in my case, “wheelchair user” would be fine. She clearly didn’t like either of those words but she accepted that that was my “opinion.”

I know that some times I have trouble letting go of things, but the words “differently abled” rang in my ears for hours afterwards. I couldn’t make them fit into any part of my brain, they seemed to mock me with a false sense of acceptance and a large dose of denial. I think that first we euthanize speech, when it comes to disability, and then we move from there. I want to remain spoken. Euphemism and euthanasia both begin with ‘eu’ from the Greek for well but the endings mean different things, well said and well dead.

Keep me alive in language.

“Differently abled” attempts to smother disability in shame.

Speaking plainly, fuck that.

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