Stolen Dignity

     WHY ARE THE KIDS TEASING ME?

     This is a question first asked in first grade.  The question remains with me today, not as a fixation on long-forgotten people, tangible pain, or specific places.  No,  the sting of “Why are the kids teasing me?” and specific words, phrases, or actions was removed many years ago by writing about the question, and the insights the question has given me.

     The factual basis of the question was my bent right arm, and wrist, and limping right leg.  My early understanding of the question was centered on the facts.  Yet, although I sought concrete facts from family, dissatisfaction with the answers given to me led me through a journey that I understood only in its necessity.

     My dissatisfaction was not my expression of doubt—doubt of love my family had for me.  I had, nor do I have any doubt.  They loved, and love me.  My dissatisfaction was threefold.   First, the logic of ignoring the teasing.  Second, saying that something was wrong with the bullies was no better than my feeling that something was wrong with me.  No one profited from that approach.  Finally, the cowardice of school administrators not to address specific names involving teasing that I reported is unconscionable to this day.

     “Why are the kids teasing me” was a question that offered me a nascent understanding of “stolen dignity.” 

      The understanding, response, and inaction regarding teasing was my invitation into a lifelong journey.

     “Stolen dignity” is not a word that appears in the Oxford Dictionary, http://oxforddictionaries.com/ .  It is a word that takes a lifetime to understand.  Yet, pursuit of its meaning is worthy of our earnest endeavors.

Comprehending “stolen dignity” must begin with “dignity.”  The Oxford Dictionary defines “dignity” http://oxforddictionaries.com/ as, the state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect:  the dignity of labour;  [count noun] a high rank or position:  he promised dignities to the nobles in return for his rival's murder.  2 a composed or serious manner or style:  he bowed with great dignity.  A sense of pride in oneself; self-respect:  it was beneath his dignity to shout.

     “Stolen” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary http://oxforddictionaries.com/  as an adjective.  The dictionary’s definition speaks of ideas, rather than people, although I think it is plausible to insert “individuals” in the place of “ideas.”  Oxford defined “stolen” as dishonestly pass off (another person‘s ideas) as one’s own.http://oxforddictionaries.com/.

     Dignity is not a human quality that is earned, nor is it possible without life experience.  Dignity is a gift.  Stolen dignity is an experience, which is not earned.   Similarly, it is not possible without life experience.  Yet, while dignity is a lifelong process, stolen dignity may be given in an instant—in a moment shorter than is possible to measure by any mechanism.

     Stolen dignity is not a condition that is outgrown.  Stolen dignity may be inflicted with a piercing knife any time from birth until death do us part.

     Stolen dignity is not an irreversible sentence.  Fervor is the requisite spirit, which must energize all efforts to extinguish the root causes of stolen dignity.  Fervor underlies ever word I write.

Mirrored Outward Image. Egami Drawtuo DerorriM

I cry pains of rejection...

Yet...

When my outward image egami drawtuo

Is mirrored derorrim to me

In the body of another person,

I fear....

I am not the model of acceptance

I so desperately seek in others.

When my outward image egami drawtuo

Is mirrored derorrim to me,

What questions do I need answered

To quell my fear?

When my outward image egami drawtuo

Is mirrored derorrim to me,

How much reassurance must I be given

That I am beyond the pain of that teenager,

Whose Strengthe were hidden from others

By her outer packaging?

Crippled

     Nancy Mairs describes herself as crippled.  She is affected Multiple Sclerosis--significant aspects of her life.  Upon first reading her explanation regarding crippled, I cringed.  Childhood calls of "crippled" returned in an instant.  Mairs was clear.  She was not--she is not--prescribing the crippled label to all whose lives are in some way different from "normal,"  whatever "normal" is.
     I do not aspire to crippled certification, nor to being a cripple.  Yet, I respect her use of the label.  I understand the moment's hold it has on the body--on the mind.  Without aspiring to be crippled--to be a cripple--I must not run away, on my way to a different word, from the moment when crippled is the precise word that defines my moment's state.  Never did I imagine I would make such a statement about crippled, yet, it describes my current understanding.
    I am Patricia Ann Thorsen.  My family, my friends, and I call my self  "Patty."  Loss of stamina--loss of muscle tone--have brought me to stages I call physically challenged, and mobility impaired.  Yet, those terms do not encompass sufficiently the physical parts that are due to my cerebral palsy, and osteoarthritis.  I, like many people of a certain age, grew up as crippled, then handicapped, and then disabled.  I still describe the physical aspects, which have informed my spiritual self--my entire being--as disabled.  I do not mean to imply that disabled suffices to describe my entire being.
   I do need to be quite clear about my jigsaw puzzle pieces--crippled, handicapped, physically challenged, mobility impaired, and disabled.  Other jigsaw puzzle pieces well may enter my vocabulary--wheelchair user, wheelchair bound, confined to a wheelchair.  I do not think the latter two will define me, when I do get a wheelchair, and begin to use it.  Yet, in matter of fact, they will.   I pray that I will not run from the words before I become an intimate partner with my wheelchair--if she ever comes:)  This must be a journey, if I am not to fall victim to a wheelchair.
     I have no idea where this journey is headed--where I will travel.  Just as I had no idea of where I would arrive at the end of this posting, when I started writing it.

Left With Fear

     I fear little.  Not because I am brave, or courageous, not be a long shot.  I fear little.
     Fear's expenditure lessens my deposits of strength to take on necessary human challenges.  My moment's challenges?  They are few.  Preserve my mind's vitality.  Nurture my spirit.  Treat my hand gently.  Preserve the gifts she gives me--the strength I have taken for granted--abused--for a lifetime.
     My vehicle's challenge?  There is but one.  Preserve the strength of my left hand.  Right-handed I am not.  Ambidextrous I am not.  My mind--my spirit--are conveyed through the strength of my left hand.  Friends, family, and a spiritual community revitalize my mind and spirit.  With them, my voice sharpens.
     Exercise might strengthen the hands of some.  Yet, my lifelong abuse of my left hand fertilizes this moment's fear.  Osteorthritis attacks with anxious fear.
     Writing is my voice.  I attend to my ankle--I accommodate her anxiety.  Yet, I fear threats to my left hand's grip--the strength she brings to me.  I must give her due gentleness, that she not be lost to me--to my mind, to my spirit.
     Am I alone in such piercing fear?  I don't think so.  Yet, I cannot say what for others is the unrealized piercing fear that awaits an honest revelation--a revelation that would bring a much more authentic life.  I don't know what my left hand's compromise is--or my compromise to my left hand's honor.  If I did know, I would challenge friends, family, and strangers to be open to their body's revelation--an invitation to authenticity.
     To sleep I go.  Healing--rejuvenation--I seek.

Mature Healing

     Nancy Mairs is an author, a Catholic, an individual with a wheelchair, who is affected by multiple sclerosis.  I was drawn to her writing when I had a voracious appetite to understand my own disabilities--cerebral palsy, and epilepsy.  There is a spirituality of the human body, which is central to how I live the spirituality of The Body of Christ.  It is amazing, it is not a mechanical ritual, nor an esoteric body of knowledge to be studied.
   I gravitate toward Nancy Mairs' writing from a new dimension.  Intellectually, I know she may not telegraph to me--warn me--of the pitfalls I may face, or how to navigate a new chapter in my life--living with the use of a wheelchair.  Yet, the anxious child in me is staying up late to cram for her final exam in living with a wheelchair.  What leads me to think that I will be protected from making mistakes using my wheelchair?  After making mistakes at work, a friend reminded me, "You are not PERFECT Patty, you are human!"
     Yet, news that I should receive my wheelchair within a week or so has accelerated my anticipation.  It is the night before Christmas, and I am waiting for my presents to arrive--I am waiting to open my present.  What is it that Nancy Mairs can tell me that will satisfy me?  I am not married, nor am I a mother, or an individual with multiple sclerosis.  I do not use the word "cripple" to describe the fact that I have cerebral palsy, and epilepsy.  Although, I do understand the feelings that might lead me to change my ways.  Yet, I am not to that point yet.  I do not aspire to using that word in reference to myself.  Nancy Mairs has opened me to the need to be more receptive to the words that I use in describing my cerebral palsy, and epilepsy, and now, my osteoarthitis.  Through her openness, Nancy has encouraged me to be more reflective about such adjectives.
     The return of my voracious appetite for Nancy Mairs, and similar writers, is a sign that I am healing.  My right ankle might be on her last leg, although she has been relieved of her painful bone spurs.  Yet, I am healing.  I am not healing toward a past version of myself--a version with more physical flexibility.  No, that is a false sense of healing.  Mature healing is not movement toward a perfect, god-like way of living.  No.  I have not been granted supernatural--infallible--powers that elevate me from daily struggles.  No.  Mature healing, if I choose to embrace it, calls me to seek accommodation to what I may no longer do.
     During a home evaluation, in which I tried out a wheelchair to see if it would work in my own home, I told the medical vendor that I had three questions to which I needed answers.  When he tried to evade my questions, I made myself quite clear.  First, I needed to know, "what can I do today with this wheelchair?"  Secondly, "with practice, what will I be able to do with this wheelchair?"  Third, "what will I not be able to do--what will I need to ask help in accomplishing when using my wheelchair?"  He was afraid of his answers to my questions.  I was forthright.  "I may not like your answers, but, I need to ask the questions--I need answers, so that I may live as fully as is possible."
     I am anxious.  I want to get started in my quest for answers.  As much as I may want the vendor, or someone else to answer my questions, no one may answer the questions for me.  I have forgotten the willful child, who unwittingly outfoxed the physical therapists.  When given tasks designed to get me to use my left and my right hands, I found a way to accomplish the tasks without using my right hand, which was affected by cerebral palsy.  I was too young to have plotted such rebellion.  I was just willful.  Much has changed, but, I think that willful soul is still resident in me, below my ankle foot orthotic, perhaps?

Invalid...Birth Defect...

     For a lifetime, words have fascinated me. Specifically, words used to describe individuals with disabilities, in common parlance.
     I was handicapped as a child.  Today, I am disabled.  Both are loving names.
     Cruel kids crippled me.  Punks proclaimed, "Palsy Patty."
     I was stunned by an adult appellation of Gimp.  I am Patty, I am not a Gimp.
     Yet, I am having the last laugh.  I was blessed with a lifelong sensitivity, and passion for words of all forms.  The sting of those words is replaced by dedication.  Words used to describe individuals, be the words adjectives, or nicknames, may in no way dictate derogation.
     Two words akin to handicapped, and crippled, were not spoken in reference to me.  Yet, they still sting.
     Invalid.  In-val-id.  In-va-lid.
     These two words speak volumes.  Do we hear the emphatic value judgment that we make?  Do we care?
     I don't believe these words are used as frequently as they were at one time.  Yet, they are worthy of our notice.
     Birth defect.
     Manufactured goods have defects.  Children are not manufactured.  They are not mistakes on an assembly line.  They are children of God.
     I may be said to have two birth defects.  But, they have names.  Call them by name.  Let them be known.  Let them be understood.  My birth defects are cerebral palsy and epilepsy.  The next time you meet them, in me, or in someone else, address them by name.

I've Got to Hand It to You

    Until relatively recently, I have given my left hand little due attention--little credit--for her service to me.  Some were amazed at what I could do with the use of just my left hand--with little to no help from my right hand.  I felt no amazement--I was born this way--never have I had full use of both hands.  So amazement was not worthy of my energy's expense.  My occupational therapists were frustrated, if not angry.  I kept finding ways to do tasks they conceived to be two-handed tasks without calling on my right hand.
     My views toward my left hand have changed since July, 2009.  No longer working--living on long-term disability--I was called to a different view of my left hand.  She was shaky.  No longer was indomitable strength in hand.  Nor was it at arm's reach.
     My left hand still has some strength.  Yet, she has put me on notice.  She will not stand for any further abuse for my ego's sake.  Boxers may fear a right jab.  I fear my left's fist in my face.
     So, do I duck?  No. What do I do?  Wake up.  Look.  Listen.  Feel.  Accommodate.
     Habits are hard to break.  Yet, too much is at stake not to act.  Now.
     I am not alone.  We do not want to admit it, yet, we are aging.  Each of us is called to different accommodations.
     Outstretched hands.  Figuratively, I pray I have outstretched hands that welcome others into my life.  Yet, literally, I need to give care not to try to stretch my fingers so wide that they are strained by going beyond their natural limits.  I recognize when I try to grab too much weight, and in such a way that I compromise the palm of my hand--where my hand and thumb meet.
     I am further along in recognizing that I need to care for my right ankle.  She needs my loving care, so that she does not give out completely.  The temptation to be angry with her is present.  She has failed me.  Yet, will anger bring her strength back to me?  Will resignation to her disintegration make her strong?
     There must be a middle point between anger, and resignation.  The ballerina tries not to fall off her balance beam.  Am I alone on the beam?  Where are you?

Independence's Confession--Surrender

   As time moves forward toward getting an electric wheelchair--a zapoid, as my sister calls it--I am softening.  The fierce, defensive woman of days gone by, is leaving.  That is good.  Her ferocity--her defensiveness--drained me of the energy necessary to shift gears into my new life.
   I confess, I do wonder what happened to two people.  What happened to the Cub Scout, who is sitting in the background behind my ballerina alterego?  I do not remember if I ever knew him.  Probably not.
   I must confess that for a lifetime, I have tried to tiptoe, ever so quickly, past the reach of him, and others in wheelchairs.  May I be forgiven my fear masked in an advocate's bravado.  Ever the advocate that others not shun individuals who appear different, I was guilty of the very crime I abhorred.
   I knew better.
   Given the graceful acceptance of Jean--a coworker, who was beaten to death by her husband--I tried to run from her scooter.  Forever etched in my memory is the day we were headed to a lower floor.  I opted to take the stairs rather than have to accommodate her scooter--a reality I could not face.  Jean was wise.  She knew my discomfort.  Yet, she never let on.  We both knew.  Yet, she did not need my comfort--the acceptance I could not give her.  Before she died, she offered her friendship should I ever need help accommodating to my body, after I stopped working.
    I wonder what happened to a childhood friend--the daughter of my high school vice-principal.  Jeannie and I went to Michael Dowling School for Crippled Children--I think.  It may have been Courage Center's predecessor, the Curative Workshop.   Jeannie had osteogenesis imperfecta.  Her brittle bones meant she had to use a wheelchair.  She had full use of both hands.  We were educated together.  We were not crippled.  We were not cured of our live's circumstances.  None of us is.
   Jeannie and I were partners.  I was the doorkeeper.  She was the handywoman.
   I cannot say that I have surrendered completely to my independence.  Were I to blame my resistance to complete surrender, I might blame my mother:)  A lifelong family joke has been that whatever goes wrong is Mom's fault.  Only to the degree that I have heeded my mother's words so long ago, "You will learn to live independently," may I blame my mom.  Seriously, I never have.  In good conscience, I never could.  It is her words that ground me.
   I have known an individual, who has worked outside the home in the past.  Yet, now she allows partial blindness to be an excuse for not living as fully as she might--for holding her family hostage to her dependence.  It is beyond me that she can live that way.  It is beyond me that her family does not use their faith to call her on it--to nurture a fuller life for everyone.
    Surrender to independence is a tenuous balance to strike.  Each of us needs to live in partnership with one another.  We are called to make the most of our gifts--live the fullest of our days.  We must live in partnership.
    We must give what we can, and take what we must.
    Surrender to independence calls for a heartfelt confession.  Mechanical offerings have no place in a true surrender to absolute independence.  I do not claim to have made the surrender to independence that I am called to make.  I do see the surface of the confession.  Words are given to me pry open the mystery of how to make a surrender to independence without losing one's God-given dignity.
    Tempting--alluring--though it be to think, surrender is not a one-time confession to be made at a convenient time of our scheduling.  True surrender--true confession--is a call made at inconvenient, humbling moments in our day.  When our dignity is compromised, true surrender is God's ransom.
    Flailing one's arms and legs as a confession is mechanical.  Flailing strips surrender of its dignity.  Self-respect deserves dignity.  True confession is a commitment--an openness to adjusting ways of living forever.
    Independence and dependence are not absolutes.  Independence and dependence are not opponents.  Absolute independence is not humanly possible to achieve.  Absolute dependence may be possible.  Honestly, I do not know.  Yet, absolute dependence is morally, and ethically unconscionable.
     I confess, I do not understand how an individual--how a family--may not strive to achieve some degree of independence--to achieve the fullness of God's gifts.  Difficulty---the degree of difficulty--that is involved in making a true confession--from crafting a unique interdependence--is no excuse.
     Independence is not a commodity that may be bought off the rack in a store.  Independence must be custom made--custom crafted--by calling on God for partnership.
     Dependence is not the scrap material of independence.  Dependence is interwoven into the fabric of independence.  Together, they create our life's tapestry.
    May we surrender to interdependence--a partnership with God.