RIP Laura Hershey

Disability activist, poet and writer Laura Hershey passed away Friday after a sudden illness. She is survived by her daughter Shannon and her partner Robin Stephens.

Tributes are pouring in from many in the disability community who saw Laura as a teacher and mentor, as well as a pivotal figure who stood up for others. She had a rare and precious insight into disability issues and was able to convey that in her prolific writings.

Her writings and activism also reached many outside the disability community. She was published in the Huffington Post as well as many other major news outlets, magazines, books of poems and online. She protested against the Jerry Lewis muscular dystrophy telethons, saying that "0ther organizations have found ways to fund-raise without demeaning the people they are trying to serve."

Read more: Laura Hershey, 48, championed disability rights - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16726649#ixzz16aPtX1TO
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Laura recently did a series of videos on YouTube as part of the It's Our Story series. In this one she speaks about disability and how it's a civil rights issue.




Laura was also a poet who recently wrote about the adoption of her teenage daughter . A book of poetry called Spark Before Dark is to be published by Finishing Line Press. Her well known poem You Get Proud by Practicing speaks to the journey toward self empowerment in the face of ableism and reflects her humanitarianism. Rest in peace, Laura and thank you for your tireless work for others and the legacy you leave.

It is sunlight
When you practice seeing
Strength and beauty in everyone,
Including yourself.
It is dance
when you practice knowing
That what you do
And the way you do it
Is the right way for you
And cannot be called wrong.
All these hold
More power than weapons or money
Or lies.
All these practices bring power, and power
Makes you proud.
You get proud
By practicing.

Remember, you weren’t the one
Who made you ashamed,
But you are the one
Who can make you proud.
Just practice,
Practice until you get proud, and once you are proud,
Keep practicing so you won’t forget.
You get proud
By practicing.

Dear Illegal Parker

Dear Illegal Parker,

On Thanksgiving, I visited my mother on the other side of town to be with family. There were no open accessible parking spots so I had to park at the rear of the lot in two open non accessible spots.

I could only do this because there were people inside to ask to move my van later if someone parked next to me. However, if I was alone I would have had to leave.

It was raining pretty hard. As I exited the van the zipper on the side pouch on my wheelchair somehow opened. Some of my id cards and other important papers fell out. People were waiting for me in the lobby so if I'd been parked in an accessible spot they would have seen me and come out to help. Cell phones don't work inside the place I was going to so that wasn't an option. I didn't want to leave important papers laying around in the wind and rain to blow away while I went to get help.

So I went back into the van, got a quad reacher and lifted the papers off the wet ground. Meanwhile I had to find my ziploc bag to put over the joystick on my power chair to keep it from getting wet. It took me a long time to get everything gathered up. I got pretty wet since it was raining hard.

Once I was finished I started toward the entrance. Someone pulling out of a spot didn't see me and almost hit me. Fortunately, I was able to dodge the car and get out of the driver's way in time.

As I passed the half a dozen handicap spots, I noticed that your car didn't even have a placard or plate. I wondered why even on Thanksgiving at a senior housing complex, someone would illegally park in an accessible spot. I suppose you didn't think someone in a wheelchair might really need that spot.

I hope you'll think twice about using accessible spots illegally again, not just because it's illegal, but because your choice to do so creates safety consequences for others. The accessible spots are up front for a reason. Wheelchairs are hard to see in a parking lot, especially in the rain, and because I was parked near the rear, I might have been hit by someone pulling out of a spot.

Not that knowing any of this ahead of time would have stopped me from going out, but it sure would have made my day easier if you hadn't parked illegally. I wouldn't have had to sit in wet clothes all day for one thing. I don't know if you were ticketed after I reported it but if you were, I hope it's a deterrent. Your car was gone when I came out, but that did me no good. I had to trek through the rain to the rear of the lot again only to discover there was no lighting back there. It was difficult to see how to place my wheelchair to get on the ramp of the van which was pretty unsafe.

Although there's no way I can explain in one letter all the reasons why accessible parking is not a luxury for people with disabilities, I hope this letter will make you think twice next time before you park illegally "for just a minute" or for convenience sake.

Yours truly,

WC

In the blink of an eye

When my friend Sue brought her guide dog Wonder over the other night, I wasn't sure how my cat Riley would react. Although the shelter wasn't sure exactly how old he is, we're guessing about eight months. No one knows his history, so it's unclear whether he's been around other dogs or cats.

When Wonder first passed through the room, Riley looked over at her, his eyes grew wide and, he hunched up in fear. Wonder was about six feet away from him and I rolled near Riley to reassure him. Wonder remained calm and completely still. Then she blinked. Riley blinked back. His body relaxed. Wonder blinked again and then Riley blinked too.

A good start.

So I found this YouTube video about raising a guide dog puppy and toward the end it shows how the cats and puppy learn to get along. It's an interesting series called Growing Up Guide Pup which teaches about the training that goes into a service animal and there are other videos to watch if you like this one.

Giving of the Thanks

My nephew always refers to Thanksgiving as the Giving of the Thanks.

In that spirit, I thought this would be a great time to share links to resources and groups who help us throughout the year.

Feel free to share yours in the comments or on your site and link back here. I'll be adding more as time allows.

United Spinal Association Membership is free Visit their site to join or call 800 404 2898 x 222 They offer free publications,Action magazine and a huge amount of information on everything from travel to equipment to advocacy.

Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation also offers many resources for those with paralysis, professionals and others. Check out their huge data base, videos and articles.

PVA (Paralyzed Veterans of America) for their many programs for veterans with disabilities and their advocacy efforts on behalf of all of us with disabilities


For the mentors we all meet and may choose to become:

 

+

Thanks to Sue, Meredith, Marianne, Karin, Linda, Jim, Sharon, Julie and the many others who help me stay as independent as possible. I appreciate all your efforts as well as the laughs we have together.

Searching in the Night

The recent death of my cat brought home to me how dealing with grief gets complicated in our lives.

In some ways, his death was not nearly as upsetting as the weeks preceding it during his illness when I felt helpless. I tried to do everything I could to take care of him. The truth is, I did what any decent pet owner would- called the vet when his condition changed, administered medication, and ultimately, put him to sleep to take him out of pain when it became clear to me that the alternatives wouldn't work.

Yet after his death I felt not relief, but more intense grief and tremendous guilt. I realized that his death was reminding me of something else.

I recall many years ago losing a pet after my dad died and as I wept in the vet's office, he pointed out to me that I wasn't just crying for my pet, but for my father's death. I've always been grateful to that wise man for his kind words, for teaching me not to judge my feelings.

My intense feelings about Buddy's death helped me realize that grief had yet another lesson to teach me, one I hadn't recognized. This time it was a lesson about guilt.

It's only now that I realize there was nothing more I could have done, not only for my pet, but also for my father, who died suddenly before I could get home, and for any number of friends who have died in situations where I felt I 'should' have done something. For example, some of my friends with disabilities have taken their own lives or died in accidents. This has been very hard to witness. I've asked myself were there signals I missed? How could I not have known?

I'm finally learning that sometimes there isn't anything we can do. It's not always a question of letting others down when we become helpless bystanders, but a recognition of our human limitations.



Over the past four days my rescue kitty Riley (a tabby shown in the photo) has gone from whimpering in my lap for hours to going on 3 am scouting missions to discover windows and other special cat places. It's reminded me of Buddy's kitten days, when he too would wander around at night, then hop into the bed in the wee hours to report back to me that he discovered that knocking over things in the bathtub makes a great noise. I greet Riley with as much enthusiasm as I can muster, instead of urging him to go back to sleep, just as I did with Buddy, knowing that he'll grow up soon enough and his scouting days will be over.

Having a young cat around is not only healing because I lost a pet, but because it's a way to affirm that the deaths I've witnessed are just part of a cycle, one that I believe goes beyond death, and are no less joyful for having been lived despite how they may end in this world.

Welcome Riley!

In the spirit of all that was, is and ever shall be my dear Buddy, loveable, fluffy guy that he was, I adopted a rescue kitty through Animal Allies. He's about a year old and was abandoned by his owners when they moved.

I've named him Riley. As you can see in his pictures, he's a tabby with white and has large green eyes. Of course his eyes aren't quite open in that photo since he just woke up from a nap.

Riley is fitting right in. He's a bit of a couch potato, giving cat toys the obligatory shove to make me happy, but not really into it yet. Maybe once he settles in more. He likes listening to stories. Mostly he wants to sit in my lap.

And that's fine by me.

Paraquad's 40th Anniversary

Those helped by Paraquad explain the diversity of resources they offer that assist them with independent living.

I Want To Hold Your iPod

Who knew? Back in elementary school, a visiting priest teased us about the new singing group.

"Bugs, I think. The beetles?"

Every day we ran home from school to play their records and swoon over the album covers.

Now they're available on iTunes.

Geesh, I feel old. But in a good way.

Kid Interview About Disability

Powerful and loving video of a mom with paralysis interviewing her four adorable kids about how her disability has affected their views. Worth a watch for anyone.

Microsoft Surface: Cerebral Palsy Touchscreen Therapy Demo

Deaf Like Me

Sometimes Less Is More

My friend was telling me about her power outage last week. She came home from work, parked her car in the garage, closed the power door and just as she transferred into her wheelchair the power went out.

She was able to go up the ramp into her family room and find her way inside, but there were no lights or heat. She decided to go out to get something to eat once she remembered her microwave wouldn't work, but then realized that she couldn't because the only way she could work the garage door to get her car out was if the electricity was on.

"Ah, that's right," I said. I've never had a garage, much less a garage door opener, so it took me a minute to even think about that. "Bummer."

Timing is everything.

If the power went out earlier, she might have been able to leave her car outside, but would have had to try to transfer on her driveway (which is on a hill), then get inside via a ramp on the back of the house in the dark, I pointed out.

"But", she said, "I would have been able to get something hot to eat instead of being stranded inside. I think I would have preferred that."

As I listened to this, I realized I don't have and probably never will have this issue.

Sometimes less is more.

RIP Buddy 2002-2010

Over the weekend I had to make the difficult decision to have the vet put my cat down.

Here's my favorite picture of him from a few years ago, in his favorite place- bed. When he wasn't in bed, Buddy was the closest thing I ever had to paws-on assistance: holding down pages while I used my mouthstick and laying on my legs during spasms. He tended to show up whenever I was struggling to do something and would inevitably put a paw out to help. If that failed, since he had no opposable thumbs, he would snuggle me.

When he was a kitten, his tail was so big that he constantly tripped over it and would sit on the floor and sigh. I assured him he would grow into it, which he sure did! Buddy weighed 25 pounds and was close to four feet long. Despite that, he was one of the most gentle animals you'd ever meet.

Rest in peace, my dear companion.

A Very Determined Young Man in a Power Chair

And check out the look he gives everyone toward the end, as if to say "Relax, I got this under control geesh!"

MIssing my Buddy

Over the past few weeks has been the first time in almost twenty years that I've been without a pet around. My cat has been in the animal hospital twice. He's there right now and I'm waiting to hear news.

I used to have multiple pets, perhaps for this reason. As pets age, we all know it's inevitable we'll usually outlive them. But this cat was an "only cat" type, so when my aged tabby passed away years ago, I decided that having one big fluffy tuxedo cat was the way to go. And because he has a larger than life personality and acts more like a dog than a cat (being an Angora- affectionate and sociable), that's worked out well. He's always been oh-so-happy so I have no regrets, not for him and not for me.

But the quiet. It's odd not to hear his chewing from a pet bowl, paws running around the corners of hallways (and sometimes slamming into walls), objects falling in other rooms or plaintive meows begging for attention of some sort. It's strange not to have a twenty five pound ball of fur jump up on the keyboard while I'm concentrating on something other than him or to have him plop down and put one of his huge paws on the screen to signal it's time to stop working and go to bed.

Yet it's not loneliness per se. Not the kind Roger Ebert talks about here. Friends keep calling. But they're humans and, as such, our relationship differs. Geesh, not one of them has offered to go in the other room and drop objects, which I think is really unreasonable. Could be fun.

Although I can see some pluses in not having a pet around in terms of time management, it's not worth the loss of companionship and unconditional love they have always given me.

Survival of the Fittest- Or Not?

Imagine being on a reality show and having a tribe member who is a world class athlete, who has world records in distance running, won gold at the NY triathlon, and has finished the Hawaii Ironman.

And then imagine that you reject her because you don't want to go to the finals with a 'charity case'.

This is not a hypothetical situation. It really happened this season on Survivor. But you see this athlete is an amputee. What the tribe members saw was her disability, not her ability.

The October 20th episode of Survivor: Nicaragua featured the elimination of Kelly Bruno, a 26-year-old medical student from North Carolina. Although she was good at challenges and helped with work around her tribe's camp, she was voted off for one simple reason. Kelly is a below-the-knee amputee. In their on-camera interviews and during their conversations around camp, several of Kelly's tribe mates were heard saying that they needed to get rid of her because no one wanted to go to the finals with "a charity case." They figured that the members of the jury would give Kelly the million dollars because they felt sorry for all that she'd been through in her life.

What they succumbed to was the stigma of disability.

Disability often carries a stigma that many people don't want to be associated with. People with disabilities, whether from birth or acquired later in life through injury or illness, are often marked as being weak, fragile and unable to do even the simplest things for themselves. As in the case of Kelly Bruno, other people may see those with disabilities as objects of pity or people to be looked down upon.

Their loss.

Read more at Suite101: The Stigma of Disability http://www.suite101.com/content/the-stigma-of-disability-a303818#ixzz14K8sGFGD

Bullying in Schools: Empowering Students

As we tackle bullying in schools, ways to empower students are being explored. This article talks about mobilizing bystanders to stop bullies.




Related:

Disaboom also has posted an article about how students with disabilities who are bullied can fight back.

This article points out ways for parents to discuss their reaction to bullying as a bystander with their kids.

Feel free to leave more resources in the comments.

14 year old boy stuck in apartment since October 7

Jaime Roman, who has a disability and uses a wheelchair, has missed almost a month of school and hasn't been able to get out to do anything else either.

Why? Because of a broken elevator in his apartment building. His mother can't get him downstairs in his wheelchair. A spokesman said there have been "unusual problems" trying to get the elevator fixed, but a part is expected tomorrow.

Let's hope so.

You're invited to join....

the Inclusive Planet, the "best place on the web for accessible content, conversations and friends."

Lots of information for blind users, including about NVDA, the new open source screen reader.

And more information is there for those of us who may not know what a perkins brailler is.

And while I'm sending invitations, don't forget that there's a disability blog carnival on the horizon.