Friday, April 23, 2010

to nothing


when you see someone you truly love, admire and respect reduced to a wheelchair by a silent disease, it hits hard. Especially when the person you knew was so high on life. They didn't want to retire at 60 or even 64 for that matter, they didn't want to stay at home either, they had made plans to keep living to the very full. But no more. The disease is not because time and bodily misuse has caught up with him, but because the debilitating infection has sought him out and scars his life. There is no cure, no surgery can make any difference.

It's hard to describe. But, I guess it's like losing a long loved dog to a slow cancer or to old age. The dog that you played with every day, the dog that would go nuts whenever you put your runners on and went for the leash. That dog was happy, but can only now manage to lay in front of the fireplace, exhausted. Only thing is, we're dealing with someone even more special.


1 comment:

kayla clark said...

i heard a girl give a speech the other day. it was called 'see the ability, not the disabilty.' i remember it well because her last line was 'who are we to judge the disabled when the way we judge them makes us more disabled than they are?'