Patrick's Place

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Monday's Morals

You’re spending the day with a person with some kind of disability, but who is having no problem getting around on this particular day. You run errands with the person, and you wind up at a store with a large parking lot. You see one single open handicapped parking space close to the door, and one otherwise good space just one row further away. Your friend pulls out a handicapped placard to hang on your rear-view mirror. Since they’re clearly having a good day with no pain and no difficulty at all in getting around, would you take the one remaining handicapped space available, or the space one row over, or would you even suggest not taking the handicapped space? Why?

The day isn't over yet. Disabilities can flare. Any second of any day can bring a change. The lighting, the floor covering, the temperature in the store may cause a problem that makes walking out to the car at the end of the trip next to impossible. And if someone should run into you rounding a corner at the end of an aisle...all bets are off.

Years and years of living and working and being related to people with minor and major physical problems (and being one myself temporarily) has made me understand that no one (NO ONE) can tell anyone how they are feeling more clearly than the person's body itself. I wouldn't dare to question someone. How exactly do you know they aren't in pain? Do you know what medications they took to get through the day, and how long they last, and whether they rested for the past two days just so they would have a marginally "normal" day today?

I walked for two blocks in the city with a dear friend of mine on Saturday. She had to stop 4 times to breathe. She doesn't "look sick" except for being extremely pale. She related to me that other friends had held a place in line for her that morning while waiting for a bus and she sat on a planter a few feet away. When the bus arrived and people prepared to board, she walked over to her friends to board. Several people behind them in line muttered about her "cutting." She could barely get up the steps into the bus and nearly fainted in the aisle. But of course, those people behind her in line, who were clearly in better health than she currently is, presume to be MUCH better doctors for her than her own body. Do you know what she told me as we walked those two blocks in the afternoon? The worst part isn't being so ill, or having to take things slowly. The worst part is feeling like you have a target on your back; ANYone can say/do anything to you and fighting back at all simply costs too much effort.

Yes, it steams me when able-bodied people abuse privileges meant for others (like my dad using my mom's placard after her stroke--it drove. me. nuts!). But I no longer assume. Because you know what that does, right?