A Midweek Elegy

Put One Foot in Front of the Other

Some people like to tell the disabled that, “you can do anything!” As if their pronouncement can make it so. I’ve sat with the unfairness of life since I became disabled from polio at age eight months. Even as a child, I knew there was no way to overcome some things. I can’t play the violin. I don’t do well at volleyball. I make a mess trying to fill a sleeve with ground coffee—you can’t hold the bag and pull the lever too.

Still, I was taught to keep my chin up, to prove to others that I could be independent and do most everything for myself. I’ve never led any introduction with, “Hi, I’m disabled.” Instead, I’ve worked hard to get others to first see me as a person, not a crip. The rest, well my adoptive dad taught me to throw a good right hook.

But today, I can’t stop thinking about the day that Donald Trump mocked a disabled reporter.

I’m no one-handed snowflake. I roared with laughter at the Wayan brothers’ “Handyman,” the disabled superhero. I’ve written about how ridiculous it is to have someone at church try to shake your one good hand while you’re holding a Styrofoam cup of bad coffee. I can laugh at myself trying to peel a fricking potato.

But when he mocked that reporter in 2015, I knew in my deepest being, that he meant to be cruel. That he was just like my abusive one-time boyfriend who asked me if I swim in a circle. Like the boy in high school who admitted that he’d totally date me “if it wasn’t for my arm.” That like the reporter, the president-elect of the United States thinks I’m worthless, less than, garbage.

I sit with the horrible realization that I don’t count for much. Like those of color, or whose ethnicity, identity or religion separate them from “real” Americans, I’m slapped in the face by those who have just ushered in Trump’s second coming. I get the feeling that if I were his daughter, he would never have fantasized about dating me. My body is too imperfect, therefore I am brushed to one side with the other “out” groups.

The only thing I can see that doesn’t make me want to throw up is that darned hippie dude from Galilee. He not only sought out all us lepers and crips and nobodies, he loved us. You might get your courage somewhere other than faith, but when you understand that a majority of Americans just agreed that some of us are better than others, the Big J has some pretty comforting words for everyone weary and heavy laden.

And I’m not talking about scripture interpreted conveniently to favor certain “believers” over everyone else. The meat of those words demands our loyalty to mercy, kindness, love.

Do I wish God would magically heal my disability like the guy with the withered hand? You bet. But I also see that my allegiance is to love, not whether I might be the president elect’s “chosen one” by my physical beauty. As much shame as I’ve felt from my disability, I’ve gained so much more in learning how to love.

Yes, I’m grieving today, simmering in the same kind of shame as that disabled reporter. I also know that life is unfair, so I’ll keep placing one foot in front of the other, find ways to do stuff even if I look like a fool and keep loving others not in spite of their misplaced fealty, but because of it.

For if we have everything on earth but we have not love, it’s “Gong Show”¹ time. I hope that like me, you’ll take some time to feel your feelings and then get busy thinking up ways to love your world. Let your faith be like a shield to ward off injustice wherever it exists. You may look ridiculous, but never, ever, stop fighting for those who swim in circles like me.

1. The Gong Show originally aired in the mid-seventies on NBC.