By William G. Stothers
It has been a hard year on the old bod for President Bill Clinton. First, he blew his knee stumbling on some steps at the home of golfer Greg Norman. As a result, Clinton spent time in a wheelchair, then on crutches and, finally, a cane. And he spent considerable effort in rehab.
No more than he gets over this (temporary) disability, than he hears that he needs hearing aids. He has lost hearing in the upper registers, a fairly common occurrence among people of his age.
So, after years of mouthing supportive words about people with disabilities, Clinton joins us. It can happen in a second, or it can creep up on you.
Have you noticed, though, that nobody has been telling the President how courageous he is? I saw only one brief item about how he was an inspiration to others of his generation confronting similar conditions. Why should there be any? Clinton has been able to perform the duties of his office as effectively (or ineffectively, depending on your politics) as he did before. How different it would be if he had experienced a more severe disability.
Christopher Reeve became a quad and, with accommodations, has continued to work in his chosen field. He has directed a film and is acting in films. (He's also engaged in disability-related causes such as the push for a cure for spinal cord injury, arousing anger and opposition among many disability rights advocates; but that's another story.)
Just the other day, Fred Fay, a quad in Concord, Massachusetts who must remain prone at all times, won the prestigious Henry B. Betts Award for his advocacy work, especially through Justice For All. MAINSTREAM published a story about this "flat-out advocate" (October, 1995) who orchestrates a symphony of political action for disability rights all over the country. He never leaves his house, but he has one hell of an impact.
Reeve and Fay get tagged "courageous" often. But they're really no different from Clinton. They do their jobs, work they have chosen. I'm sure their disabilities are a pain in the butt, both figuratively and literally. But, as M. Scott Peck pointed out years ago in the pervasive self-help book The Road Less Traveled, "Life is difficult." Peck didn't say, "life with a disability is difficult."
Sometimes those of us with disabilities forget that life is bigger than disability. We allow our disabilities and the enormous amount of time and effort often needed to cope with related activities to overwhelm and obscure the joys and agonies of our larger lives. My disability, which can best be described as polio quadriplegia, has been a core characteristic of my life and personality since I was 10 years old. For more than 25 years, I made my disability the prism through which I experienced life. I hated being disabled. I lived in a cloud of self-pity. That made it difficult to connect with life -- to learn, to grow and to achieve anything worthwhile. I went to school and graduated from university and began a career.
Looking back, I am amazed I was able to do what I did during those years. I ask myself what more might I have done if I had not crippled myself so. I cannot express the joy I feel today that comes with self-acceptance.
I know that many people with disabilities have been through what I went through. And many, many are still going through it. That's why I think that HolLynn D'Lil's article "Being an `inspiration'" is so important in this issue. We have to rethink the way in which we conceive our selves. Far from being rejected as inferior and without value, we can -- and must -- present ourselves as models for living in the world of the 21st century.
Who knows better how to adapt and flourish that people with disabilities? We have created legal structures that declare our equality and promise equal access þ the level playing field. With those laws in hand, we are embarked now on the struggle to transform society.
That's what people like Bill Clinton, Christopher Reeve and Fred Fay are doing. Other people with disabilities, far less well known, are doing it, too, every day. Individuals with disabilities are working as teachers, bureaucrats, doctors, lawyers, television news correspondents. Others are hard-core activists fighting to establish our rights and value as human beings. Thank God for them all.
William G. Stothers is editor of MAINSTREAM.
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