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Show 10 Karen is from the MS Society and runs the support groups in this area. She has watched my gradual decline these past years and has lately spoken to everyone in general and to me in particular about daily pacing, about prioritizing, and especially about accommodating. It is difficult to pace oneself with a growing family. My family is always top priority. But I have not, until today, begun to accommodate. She has pulled into the mall parking lot and finds an accessible parking space. "It is accessible" she is saying, "not 'handicapped'." "Handicapped" is a dirty word, I am learning. If the stall itself were "handicapped," I wonder - if it had a disability like me - what would it look like? She is unfolding the chair into the parking space and it is before I exit the car into the chair that I receive my first stare. "What's the matter with her?" is the wispy thought in this stranger's head. I know this because I have had that same fleeting question about others then in my present circumstance. But there is nothing the matter with me. I am a wife, a mother, a citizen. I love, I laugh, I cry. I worry over my children, I frown over crime in the news, I revel in small acts of kindness. There is nothing the matter with me. There is something the matter with my body. |
