The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

crutches

"crutches" 

My dad told me that when he was growing up in Dublin, if you had any sort of visible defect you'd best prepare yourself for a good bit of 'jeering'. Basically, if you had an ear growing out of your arm, your friends would lift their own and go 'eh? I can't hear ya, you bloody eejit'. They'd laugh, they'd regularly ridicule you, but the thing that impressed me the most was that they would still consider you a friend. Oh, they'd give you the gears about a gimpy leg or a speech impediment, but you were usually part of the herd, and you were expected to be tough enough to take the good-natured ribbing. Of course, there were exceptions to the rule, but by and large everyone was part of the fray, the ones with special circumstances christened with some kind of humourously fitting name. My dad had one friend called 'Muscles O'Driscoll', who must have had a given name, but I've no idea what it was. Apparently he was incredibly scrawny, moreso than all the others in the group, so he was anointed 'Muscles', and oddly, he took it like a man. He took that name into adulthood, though whether he still goes by it I don't know.

Another one he knew was a fellow with some severe physical debilitation, a young man who could barely speak or move but who was able to use one foot to communicate by writing with his toes. He was older than my dad, but he still managed to involve himself in the games of the neighbourhood, playing 'football' with them even, by holding the ball in position with his head for them to kick. They called him 'My Left Foot', and they tormented him good-naturedly, and for a good while he took it, until he began developing other interests, namely writing and painting. His name was Christy Brown, a fairly prolific Irish personality, but to the kids on the street he was 'My Left Foot', and occasionally, an ill-tempered one. My dad told me about him when I was a child, and when I repeated it to my classmates they decided I was lying, because how was it possible that my father actually knew someone like that? Years later, when the film of Christy's life came out with Daniel Day Lewis in the starring role, I smiled like a cheshire cat when I learned that it was called 'My Left Foot', the very nickname I'd told them the kids of the streets of Dublin had given him. Christy died in the early eighties, and is buried in the same cemetery as my grandparents. What is interesting about him is that though he was a sometimes belligerent man (and he was given to taking a drink, apparently, which would have had me with my irreverent humour rolling on the floor in hysterics), he was very much a determined man as well, and his cerebral palsy didn't stop him from pursuing his goals, from carrying on like anyone would. The disability, in some ways, may have lent him a strength that all the upright kids lacked. He had more than most of the people in my life do. One has to admire this. I have yet to read his poetry.

I had a cousin, a second or third cousin I believe, who was born with some sort of condition in which her head was two to three times larger than an average head should be. She too, lived in Ireland. My dad hadn't mentioned her to me, but when I went to Ireland to visit with my other cousins, they told me about her while my father cursed them silently for letting the proverbial cat out of the bag. It seems Carmel lived in an institution and had for many years, because she was unable to care for herself, and at that point, could not sit up without assistance. Well, you'd think I would have been sympathetic to the poor woman's plight (she was in her sixties at the time, I think), but having been raised as I was, with a weirdly inappropriate sense of humour, I began howling like mad, with big, fat tears streaming down my face. As I laughed, I made all kinds of tasteless jokes about 'poor Carmel Applehead', while the cousins erupted in a fit of giggles, and my father shook his head and told us we were all going to hell. Of course, he was grinning when he said it. Carmel died some time ago, and for that, I am sorry. She didn't have a normal life, and I suspect she wasn't very happy about that, but I have a feeling she would have been used to the jibes by that point, that she would have known that we meant nothing by it, that disabilities make the unaffected slightly uncomfortable, and she would have forgiven us. I remember telling M. about her back when we were chat-buddies, and how he could not stop laughing either. Carmel was instrumental, then, in bringing us together. I'll always be grateful to her for that, the poor soul. This is not to say that I haven't felt terrible for her, though. I've been sad about the limitations she'd had to live with, the loneliness and the despair. I just keep that part to myself. It wouldn't have done any good to spread it around.

I think I prefer that kind of outlook, though. I like that humour can be incorporated into a bleak situation, that a person with a perceived weakness can find the light part of it through the laughter of another. What good would it do to look at them sympathetically? Like they're broken and subsequently useless? Maybe a joke or two is the right way to handle a person who just wants to be 'normal'. If you can't take a crippled person and make them walk, maybe treating them as though it doesn't matter much is the right way to go about it. Of course, it might be asking to much of someone who is all too aware of their differences to be above the jocularity, but I wonder if we sometimes wrongly assume that everyone with a serious developmental problem doesn't find the value in levity.

So, my dad has never been one to treat people differently based on their apparent weaknesses, and I've always admired this about him. Whereas I am sometimes uncomfortable with people who are obviously different (is dwarfism a weakness? I don't think so. The best laugh of my life had to be when my sister, who was a hostess at a family restaurant, had to lift a family of dwarves into booster seats while I sat across the restaurant, trying to not to explode. My father had to get up and leave. So wrong, but wickedly funny) my dad is consistent with the way he treats people. Take the guy at the bank in the eighties who was confined to a wheelchair. I remember him well, with his Motley Crue t-shirts (okay, I know you're thinking, was that his defect? It was one of them, but not the major one) always barreling around the mall with a chip on his shoulder which should have kept him immobile from the sheer weight of it. He had long, stringy blonde hair, and he looked mean, as in 'extremely peeved at the planet'. I never went near him, and he became one of those local characters everyone recognizes on sight, but knows nothing about. Anyway, I was standing with my dad at the bank, the line creeping out beyond the entrance, and in wheels Mr.Personality, looking angry and unwashed as usual. He moved at warp speed, not caring about the people who were standing in line, and suddenly we saw that he was actually running over the toes of all the people who'd been patiently waiting their turn. Before he reached my father and me, though, my dad lunged at the guy and pulled him up out of his chair by the collar of his shirt

'Why don't you look where you're going? Don't you know that you just ran over the feet of all these people?', my dad moved his arm toward the angry, red-faced people, some of whom were rubbing their feet.

'So what?' Mr. Personality on Wheels challenged. I swear his eyes were yellow.

'So what?' my dad repeated. 'Listen you,' he growled at the guy, pulling him even further out of his seat 'if I see you do anything like that again, behaving so disrespectfully to people who've done nothing on ya, I'll punch you in the bollocks and give you a real reason to be in that bleedin' chair! I don't care if you've got problems or not! You do NOT treat people that way, you understand me?'

Mr. Personality said nothing, though his face was wrecked with shame and rage. He creaked out silently, and he didn't look back. No one in the bank said a word, but everyone was smiling. My dad carried on as though nothing had happened, except for asking one lady who'd been rolled over 'Are ya okay there, Missus?'.

I read that Mr. Personality, whose actual name was Terry, died just before this past Christmas. He was forty-six. The obituary actually mentioned his love of hair metal bands, so I knew it was him. There could not have been two. I hope he reconciled himself to what the state of things was, that he let go of the anger and just tried to live his life in accordance with the respect he felt he was owed. I don't feel bad about what my dad did to him that day in the bank, I mean, the guy deserved it for being such an almighty prick, but I do feel bad that he didn't seem to be happy any time I saw him. I really do hope that changed somewhere along the way.

When I first started having issues with panic/anxiety, I did the withdrawal/WhyMe? thing. I took a few weeks off work and stayed in a dark house, crying my eyes out. I hated everyone who didn't have the problem, the ones who breezed in and out the door, patting me on the head before carrying on with their own lives because I felt I was owed more compassion, more understanding. Maybe I was. But then, I realized that no one was able to reverse the situation, that I was someone hardwired for nervousness and that I could either give up entirely or try to find something in my life worth living for. Slowly, very slowly, I found all kinds of inspiration, and this is what I try to focus on when I have a bout of laboured breathing and cold sweat. Oh sure, I hate the dark days as much as anyone would, but I've learned that when they go, they leave behind days which shine brighter than ever before. There's something kind of worthwhile in that, even if I hate to admit it.

I hope, that if I should ever be unfortunate enough to experience the effects of disability (knock wood that I don't!), I will be able to carry on with a bit of grace and dignity. Christy found something to live for, Mr. Personality on Wheels had his music, Muscles grew up to have a family and a decent life (or so I'm told). Carmel, well, I don't know much of what made her happy, but I believe she smiled from time to time, or at least, I choose to believe so. I feel weak at times when I realize that I've been so weepy and pathetic about my little problems when there are so many others I could be forced to face instead, but I only have my experiences to go on, and that's okay.

I think that if you let go of the self-pity and find something to laugh at, the shoulders feel lighter, the clouds split and a dot of sun pushes through.