musings on women's health

The situation was awkward, I have to admit. I had my arms full of groceries as I attempted to make my way through a glass door in the little roadside mall where I’d parked my car. It seemed too heavy a door for the size of the corridor, and for some reason, it opened inward. Anyway, as I struggled to pull it open, trying not to squash some of the more delicate produce in my bags, I saw someone on the other side who looked puzzled at my dilemma.

“Here, let me help you,” I heard her say -or rather saw her lips say- through the thick glass. I suppose I would have been grateful for the help under any circumstances, but the offer came from a frail looking middle-aged woman in an electric wheelchair scooter -you know, the type you see travelling on sidewalks throughout the city, often with a little flag fluttering above them in the wind of their passage. Her legs were strapped carefully in place, in case they, too, might end up blowing off if she hit a bump. And, in case they did I suppose, she had strapped a fold-up walker onto a sturdy-looking rack behind her seat.

Without a blink, she skillfully maneuvered her little craft to the door, and pushed it open with a wheel then, after entering, held it open for me with her hand.

“But how will you get out again?” I asked, amazed at how easily she’d entered.

A smile suddenly appeared on her face as she pointed at the wall beside me. “You just have to touch that button,” she said, pointing to a waist-high metal plate that was painted a bright orange colour. “You learn to look around when you’re in one of these,” she added, patting her wheelchair as if it were a pet.

Perhaps it was the look of surprise on my face, or maybe I hesitated just a fraction too long before I moved towards the open door, but I could see a sudden twinkle in her eyes as she watched me. “What a turnabout, eh?” she said, with barely disguised mirth. “The disabled helping the abled… Who’da thought?”

I must have blushed at the fact she’d read my mind -or at least my body language. “I… I didn’t mean…” I mumbled rather clumsily. But even as I said it, I wondered if my reaction had been that obvious -that, well, rude.

The lady chuckled at my discomfort. “Sorry,” she interrupted, “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable or anything.” Her face relaxed into a broad grin. “You just looked so surprised…” Then, with a quick and practiced turn of her vehicle she backed it towards me. “Here, put some of those bags on top of my walker on the rack -they look heavy. I’ll help you to your car if you’d like.” And she turned in her seat and winked at me.

Funny, but ever since that time, I’ve begun to look at disability in a different way. It’s almost as if the members of one kingdom were looking over the border and seeing people doing the same things as them, only differently -the us and them version of society they’d been taught dissolving as they watched.

Maybe that episode was what attracted me to an article about disability in the Conversation a while back: https://theconversation.com/should-i-say-disabled-person-or-person-with-a-disability-113618  The author, Mary Ann McColl, a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and member of the Canadian Disability Policy Alliance, observed that ‘Disability is a sensitive topic. Fear of saying the wrong thing prevents people from saying anything at all, and makes us avoid having important conversations about disability.’

Her point, I gather, is that we should listen to how the person in question talks about their disability, both to understand how they envision it, and to help us address the issue in terms they find appropriate so we can avoid the cutesy language that is supposed to show we ‘understand’. As examples, McColl cites, ‘Language like “differently-abled” or “diverse-ability” suggests there is something wrong with talking honestly and candidly about disability. It might even suggest to some people that there is something shameful about disability; or that we can’t talk about it directly unless we make it cute or pretty or funny.’ Cute they’re not -they’re demeaning. And as  McColl writes, ‘Having a disability doesn’t make someone a hero, a saint, a victim, a burden or a soldier. This type of hyperbole gets in the way of having authentic relationships with people with disabilities. These words suggest one-dimensional characters.’

The lady in the mobility scooter certainly wasn’t one-dimensional, in fact, if anything, she seemed more engaged with the world than I usually am -more interested in helping than in being helped, I think. During that brief encounter with Doris, I realized that once the surprise of her -what, disability?- had worn off, I forgot that it even existed. She was just a woman helping a total stranger in a time of need. She even introduced me to a similarly scooter-bound friend who was waiting for her out in the parking lot. The friend had a lot more levers and buttons on her scooter than Doris, however, and one of her arms was folded, unmoving, on her lap.

“Wednesdays are our shopping days,” Doris explained. “So we usually meet for lunch and a few laughs.”

Stacy, her friend, giggled like a little girl and her eyes flew over to my face to welcome me. “That’s mostly on Wednesdays,” she added with a mischievous smile. “Normally we just go to the park, or to a show… You know, retired-person stuff…”

I couldn’t help but remember the two of them as I read some of McColl’s suggestions: ‘Is the disability a pertinent issue in the conversation you are having or the introduction you are making? We don’t specify a person’s gender, ethnicity, occupation or many other personal details when introducing them. Disability is a condition of life, like those others. It will be salient in some conversations and not in others.’

How right she is. In fact, I have joined both Stacy and Doris for lunch a few times since we first met, and not once did either of them introduce me to their friends as non-disabled. I’d like to think I fit right in…