Scotty's Mom

I've thought about it for days now. I was talking to this guy, Scotty, and he was telling me that his mother is having a really difficult time - dealing with depression after having a stroke. She has a great deal of difficulty walking and is refusing to use a wheelchair. As a result she is now virtually a prisoner in her home. It's a difficult situation for everyone. Scotty, a guy I know through odd circumstance is commenting on how positive I am about being disabled and how well I've adapted to the wheelchair. "Maybe you should talk to my mom," he said, only half joking. I sputtered something like, 'any time.'

I don't know Scotty well, I don't think he'd ever call and really ask me to talk to his mom. But the situation has been in my mind and in my heart ever since we spoke. The love he has for his mother is plain in the tone of his voice and in the deep respect he shows in choosing his words to speak of her and her situation. He understands the frustration she feels. He watches his father lovingly care for her and wonders how this man, his dad, deals with the depression and the need.

It's a tragic situation made tragic, not by the presence of disability, by the fear of appearing disabled. By the fear of loss of status. I was in Target here in Binghamton yesterday and I was wheeling around a corner. An elderly man and I almost collided as neither saw the other. He apologized and so did I. As he walked away he said to himself, obviously not realizing I could hear him, "At least I didn't end up like that." It was then I notice that he had a slight limp and a stroke had curled up one of his hands.

He was giving thanks that he stayed on the other side of the line. Crossing over to disability was like a social death. Like he'd have stopped being him and become something different, something other. How odd to think that sitting down rolling is so much different that standing up walking. We both get around. I know he didn't mean offence and would have been shocked to know I heard him.

Sugar tastes as sweet in my mouth as it does in his.

But that doesn't matter.

Scotty's mom's disability isn't one of mobility, it's one of selective blindness. She has lost sight of the fact that she is deeply and desperately loved. That she has an attentive son in a world when many children no longer speak to their parents. That she has a loving husband in a world where many end up alone. That she still has choices and the power to make them in a world where many are placed in homes under the will of others. Scotty's mom needs to notice that food still tastes as good, that the air still smells as fresh and that the morning light still shines in the kitchen window.

The world has not changed.

And neither really has she.

Except.

Now she knows, for sure, what will happen when the 'worst' happens.

She will still be loved.