Bully Pulpit: Bird of Youth


On the 11th day of this month, I’ll celebrate the 44th anniversary of the moment my life changed forever. Those of us with mangled spinal cords never forget these dates, and we’re no doubt guilty of both trivializing and overdramatizing the big change. For me, the contrast between B.C. (Before Crashing) and A.D. (After Disability) serves as a kind of divining rod.

There’s a huge difference between suddenly becoming disabled and being born with a disability. Those with disabling conditions from birth immediately begin a process of adaptation immersion that soon becomes second nature to them, while people with SCI or MS or polio, for example, often divide their lives into fractions and struggle with the difference between before and after. Now that I’ve been a man on wheels for more than two-thirds of my life, it’s getting harder to remember how I used to view life as a man-boy on two strong legs.

In my earliest A.D. days, in the late 1960s, I was fond of using my anniversary date as an excuse to get wasted — by drink, drugs or both. I used to enjoy letting strangers I met in bars assume that I was a Vietnam vet. A fellow drunk would approach me and bravely ask, “‘Nam?”

I’d take a generous swig from my beer and look at him with no expression.

“Mind if I ask what happened?”

“Fell from the sky.”

“Helicopter?”

Another big swig.

“Can I buy you a beer?”

“Why not.”

I suppose I was still stuck somewhere between denial and grief, but more often than not I’d wind up laughing inside, rather than crying, knowing I had cheated death.

When I approached the 50/50 point, which for me was 40 years old, I became philosophical, marking the occasion more soberly, savoring the balancing point between B.C. and A.D., as if my dual viewpoint allowed me to see more clearly than anyone else in the room. By this time bars and beer were out.  Wine, friends and small parties were in.

These days I seem to be more interested in drinking a single strong drink – a margarita or lemon drop martini — and grilling salmon or lean burgers with my wife, daughter, grandson and maybe a few close friends on my deck. Denial and grief are long gone and philosophy is useless. Practicality rules. I no longer wonder what my life would have been like minus that one fateful day. In my early days I never thought I would reach this point, but I often say a prayer of thanks for my life just as it is.

But once in a while something will bring to mind the distant past, the days of running on the beach or kicking a football through the uprights. When I linger there, what I miss the most is not the ability to stand and run or feel the sand between my toes, it’s the illusion that I have my whole life in front of me, endless possibilities, all the time in the world.

I try not to linger there too long. The bird of youth has flown, and time is too precious to waste daydreaming. These days there’s illusion enough in the busy-ness of the moment.


Support New Mobility

Wait! Before you wander off to other parts of the internet, please consider supporting New Mobility. For more than three decades, New Mobility has published groundbreaking content for active wheelchair users. We share practical advice from wheelchair users across the country, review life-changing technology and demand equity in healthcare, travel and all facets of life. But none of this is cheap, easy or profitable. Your support helps us give wheelchair users the resources to build a fulfilling life.

donate today

Comments are closed.