I know it’s politically incorrect to feel sorry for those facing a handicap or serious illness. But I do.
The boss I had at my last job was an insanely handsome man. He was also kind, funny and smart. He had been in a wheelchair since he was about 22 years old. He and his friends in California had a habit of going to the roof of the friends’ 1-story house and jumping into the pool from the roof. This guy slipped and landed on the concrete.
You never saw a glimmer of self-pity in this guy, even though his condition led to bouts of serious complications without warning. He would say, “That accident saved my life. I was a wild kid, and I would probably be dead if the injury hadn’t slowed me down and forced me to re-examine my priorities.”
Now if a paraplegic seeing his injury as a gift from God doesn’t pull at your heartstrings, just wait for the rest of the story.
He later got married (his wife I only knew from pictures, she looks like a model). They decided to use in-vitro fertilization to have the child they desperately wanted. The son (a complete cutie) was born with cerebral palsy, and you guessed it… will require a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Now this to me seems beyond a cruel turn of events. But my boss would say it was a blessing. “What other parents could understand the needs and emotions of a child in a wheelchair but us? Besides, our house is already set up for it.”
What is the difference between someone like my boss, and someone else who decides to end it all or just gives up after a debilitating injury? Is my boss a better person? I suppose that would be the quick answer to jump to. I certainly thought he was an amazing person. And it’s hard to attach the label of “amazing” to someone going through a rough time and who doesn’t handle it as gracefully and as cheerfully.
Bottom line: Why do we feel badly for people with handicaps and serious illnesses? Why do the people themselves divide into two camps: one camp goes on, and another whithers and is never the same?
I suppose we could feel bad for so many reasons, most of which involves not wanting to see other humans in physical or emotional pain.
But I think the real reason we feel bad is the same reason why some people get so upset when a child dies and could barely blink when an adult dies. Because the results are the same (illness, injury, disability, child death): We feel so bad because we sense a permanent loss of POTENTIAL.
With my boss, he still had so much potential and he’s lived up to it. He became a family man, a career man, a good person. But the day his accident happened I think even he can’t deny, the door to a whole bunch of possibilities was slammed shut. As much as handicapped people can achieve, a guy in a wheelchair could never again dream of being a firefighter, for example.
My uncle has advanced COPD. His whole life he lived to travel, and even wrote a few travel books. But now his health has made it impossible (he should have stopped traveling 2 years ago, if we’d all be honest about the danger of it). He’s staying positive, despite my aunt’s sudden death in Egypt last April after being on a cruise. But despite everything he’s done in his life, I still feel sorry for him because he’s lost the POTENTIAL to be able to do what is most dear to his heart.
Maybe that’s why some people who suddenly find themselves going blind or deaf, or becoming a double amputee in a war, or becoming a paraplegic after a car accident… maybe the ones who can’t handle it well aren’t “weak” or have a “bad attitude”. Maybe they just no longer can see their potential. Family and friends would love for those people to “buck up” because it would make them (the family and friends) feel more comfortable. But when potential possibilities are perceived to be completely stripped from you, how can hope live on?
It goes beyond handicaps and serious illness. What about the person who becomes addicted to drugs and cannot see any possibility of ever getting off the drugs? What about the person who has lived their lives without love, and suddenly realize the possibility of love may never exist for them? What about the person living in poverty who has no education, no job skills, and no possibility of ever improving their situation?
People who become sad about their circumstances may not just be “negative nellies” who need to just cheer up. People who commit suicide may not be the selfish people that many would like to dismiss them as. Maybe these people just get lost in a fog, and lose sight of any hint of potential being available to them in the future. They can’t see any possibility of anything better, whether their vision is accurate or not. It’s still what they can and cannot see - it’s still their vision and we shouldn’t judge it.
Living a life without being able to see any potential for things ever changing for the better must be a very lonely, weary road.
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