To Honor my Disability

I Require that my disability is honored.

And yet, you get angry with me because I can’t.

Your able-bodied self can’t imagine being disabled.

You think I reject you when I say no to your plans.

Your plans are flawed, I can’t possibly stand, walk, sit or give that much.

I just can’t.

You look at me with hurt and then derision.

How dare I say no, who am I to think I have that control?

But remember?

I require that my disability be honored.

Have you, ever asked me how I am?

What it is?

What it’s like?

Of course not, you would rather not know.

Perhaps you live in denial, as I have often done.

Pretending that all is okay and there is no such thing as

Disability in our family.

Is disability a failure, a flaw, a wrong? You wonder.

Perhaps it is the will of a vengeful God, the God of the first testament.

Yet you can’t find any justice in that theory and so it goes…

I cannot go with you to do the thing that you want me to do. Please go do the thing.

When you are done tell me about the thing that I cannot do.

I will listen.

I honor my disability. Will you?