As summer continues giving us its warm days, and so many things become uncertain to many among us, yesterday my son Gabriel showed me a segment on television, at ESPN. The best known sports channel in the US, was showing a very special program which you can access at http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4372243.
I had polio since I was 7-months old; it certainly gave me a different position and approach to
life than the one the majority of body-abled people have in and towards life.
Sure, it was a hard infancy, with major surgeries along the road in the life of the vivacious little girl. As a teenager, with normal hormones, it was even harder, as no one boy would want to look at me. As a university and college student, it was hard because I could not go at the speed of all others. But, I learned so much and so many things. I studied languages, psychology -which I abandoned because there was too much suffering and realized that I would not be able to actually help someone in pain- studied history and political sciences, which I adored, and then it was time to learn communications and to enlarge my experience in life through a variety of positions. Until I decided to be my own boss.
But, to make a long story short, things definitely changed for the better for me the day I decided to move from my crutches to my scooter.
However, my crutches have given me the physical training that I, sadly, do not get with my scooter. But, the advantage, on the other hand, is that my speed is multiplied by hundred with the little red scooter.
So, at the beginning of my days on the scooter, I was crossing Madison Avenue on a Friday afternoon when I see a young blind man turning around, seemingly disoriented, and while there was a huge crowd of 'busy' people going around him, there was no one who stopped to ask him "do you need anything?," "are you all right?," "may I help you in any way?..."
Naturally, I did ask him. It happens that he was disoriented and indeed lost. So, he told me where he was heading, and I volunteered to go with him. I just asked him to hold on to the back of my scooter wheelchair, and promised him to go very slowly, at his speed. I took him almost 4 blocks until his destination. As he was saying good-bye, he said thank you with tears in his eyes.
And, my heart was just too moved thanking G-d for allowing me to help him. Me, and not all those other body-abled people, who had not one second to tell a fellow human being,"let me help you..."
That's why I found the story of Dartanyan and Leroy so wonderful, a lesson of human love and care.
Precisely what we need to be reminded in these very trying days.
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