News & Advocacy in Disability Rights

Giving thanks

By William G. Stothers

Thanksgiving occurs in Canada on the second Monday in October, several weeks ahead of Thanksgiving in this country. As one who grew up north of the U.S. border, I keep a warm spot in my heart for that country and its traditions. With family still living there, I always call "home" on Thanksgiving. And with family here now, I continue the commemoration this month.

I have many memories. One stands out. It was 25 years ago this October that I went home to visit my parents in the house they had just purchased and renovated. I was coming to the end of a three-week vacation from my newspaper job in Toronto and was eager to get back to work. Thanksgiving at the homestead was to be a grand get-together with my sister Kathy and her husband Brian, and other old family friends.

The yard at this newly renovated house was a sloppy mess so my brother-in-law, Brian the lawyer, carried me into the house from my van. Unfortunately, just as we got to the concrete slab at the doorway, Brian slipped and I landed on the concrete.

My knee got banged pretty hard and swelled up painfully. But my mother, the nurse, pronounced me "okay," and we went on with the turkey and trimmings.

Later on, I went back to Brian and Kathy's house where I was staying before I was to drive back to Toronto, 90 miles away the next day. I never made it.

Kathy and Brian were having a big party at their house. But I was not in a party mood. My knee hurt. By midnight, the party roared on around me, as I lay on a sofa with my knee throbbing painfully. Finally, an ambulance was called to haul me away to emergency.

They drained my knee cavity and found a hairline fracture. I was pumped up with painkiller and put in a cast from thigh to foot.

That cast was a problem. I needed some kind of support for my leg because my power chair doesn't have elevator footrests. More important, I had recently bought an old house in Toronto. The house was 20 feet wide and 75 feet deep. All the rooms opened off a long narrow hallway. It was not possible for me with this protruding casted leg to function in that environment, let alone manage my own daily functional routines.

The result was that I went back to the scene of the crime, so to speak. My parents took me in. This was a reluctant move on all sides. They were welcoming, of course, but I think they would have preferred that I went to my own home; they liked their empty nest to themselves. And I was no doubt a grumpy guest, unhappy to be thrust back into a childhood-like dependence on my parents. I even had my dog Ying there. They tolerated him, but family ties wore thin in December after Ying devoured about 14 dozen Christmas cookies one nasty evening. On future visits I left the dog in Toronto.

This situation lasted with lots of ups and downs for three months, until my cast was removed and I got some therapy to get my knee flexible again. Doctors had assured me þ don't they always? þ that my flexibility would be fine. It wasn't. In fact, I still don't have full flex in that knee.

I'm sure my parents were happy to see the last of me from that episode. And I was relieved and happy to get back to my life and work in Toronto.

My parents are gone now. Kathy and Brian have split. I moved south. But the memories of that Thanksgiving and others remain and often flare up warm and bright. I have much for which to be thankful in my growing up and adult years. A caring family, warts and all, provides an enduring strength. Now in Southern California I have a wonderful family of in-laws. Thanksgiving with this large extended family is boisterous, fun and full of its own collection of memories and reasons for giving thanks. And while there is a dog or two around, the Christmas cookies are safe.

William G. Stothers is editor of MAINSTREAM.

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