A Powerful Way to Relate with persons with Disability
My father told me a lot of gray lies growing up, some in the form of made up stories. It was his way to make sure I learned sensibility as a child.
One of the more memorable ones was about relating to people with disabilities.
Once Daddy had caught me playfully mimicking a neighborhood Uncle. Uncle T as we all called him, had polio-induced limp due to an infection with the virus as a child.
My Dad solemnly told me that if a cock happened to crow at the same moment I was doing the mimicking, or if the sun and clouds suddenly stood still, I would immediately have the same gait and never be able to walk normally again.
He also said if I as much as laughed at persons with any disabilities or despised them in my heart or avoided them outwardly, then I should be careful, that I could wake up the next morning in the same condition.
That warning stuck with me for several years.
Do not mimic any disability.
Do not laugh at those with disability.
Do not despise them.
Do not avoid them.
And this extended to sick people as well. I didn’t avoid the other kids when they got measles or chickenpox. Maybe I was scared, but I tried not to show it.
My sensibility and consideration towards the disabled then was driven mostly by fear. If I didn’t treat them any better that could be me tomorrow.
While, I now know that disability does not results from cocks crowing or sun and clouds standing still, I appreciate my father for the lesson because it helped me to learn empathy.
As an adult I am still learning empathy and compassion by consciously practicing it.
However, I will say my best teacher has been finding myself in similar difficult situations.
In medical practice, it can be easy to tell patients, “we are doing our best, keep up your spirits, the pain will go away” but one may be devoid of how patients really feel until they have had to be confined to a bed themselves.
It’s easy to tell a person who speaks from surface knowledge and one who speaks from first hand experience.
Until you’ve experienced having to ask for help just to sit up or be turned over. Until you’ve experienced being fed because you can’t lift your arm, being cleaned up with a warm towel because you can’t have a bath.
Until you have had to accept the least people can do for you even when you know you can do better for yourself. Then you would understand what it means that a beggar has no choice.
Whether you have had first hand experience or just knowledge about a disabling condition, showing kindness and compassion to others requires deliberate effort. It is a choice!
Often times those with experience understand what the people are going through, and find it easier to show kindness.
I do not wish you to be in ill health or have a disabling condition, but I wish you and I will seek to understand these people.
When I’m tempted to get hardened when relating with patients I always remember that majority of them would not choose to be in the hospital or have the condition that they do.
Life is hard and full of struggles. In your dealings with anyone with some disability, I hope you can understand that they didn’t choose their conditions.
I hope you do unto others and what you want others to do unto you.
One thing my Dad hoped to teach me was that nobody is above disability, I hope you also realize that.
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