Thoughts on the London 2012 Paralympics

I just returned from a fabulous trip to London where my family and I attended two Paralympic events. One of the most exciting gatherings of people with disabilities and their families, friends, team members and rivals on the field, so to speak, that I have had the pleasure of attending. I’m still processing my personal reaction to being in a crowd of tens of thousands where it seemed about 1:15 people used a wheelchair, cane, alternate communication or in some other way appeared to belong to the Community of People with Disabilities.  My daughter mentioned that we didn’t get noticed the way we do at home – just another set of wheels in the crowd.

Tonight, I just stumbled on this commentary by John Hockenberry, himself a wheelchair user, on the transformation that the Paralympics brings to the stigma of disability. My favorite quote, of many: “Graceful, beautiful, rolling, not some shameful and inadequate substitute for walking….The sparkly wheels give my wheelchair, any wheelchair, intent, make me the agent of this device, not the victim of it. The same way these Paralympians are driving their bodies and not being driven by their circumstances…”

Let’s make the legacy of the London 2012 Paralympics the sustained transformation of disability to Ability.

Photo image found here.