Walking a mile
Trevor's Take
We are all products of our time and the culture that formed us. I sometimes consider myself lucky that I was raised in an extended multicultural family, with matriarchal leadership. My family included the differently-abled. But I’m still a product of my time. I have had to learn and listen to others to at least try to be a better person. Thankfully, I was raised with the adage of “never judge someone until you walked a mile in their shoes.”
I’ve found myself thinking about that a lot lately. Because of a stroke and some (thus far) mysterious medical events, I have had to use a walker and a cane for the last five months. I still consider myself very lucky and fortunate, but there are some things I took for granted that are now difficult or impossible for me.
Like any good centrist, I thought I understood mobility/accessibility issues. I definitely could speak to the issues, albeit from a very privileged position. But I didn’t have the lived experience of using assisted devices to be mobile. I didn’t know what it was like to not be able to drive. I hadn’t experienced how a crappy, bumpy sidewalk or an over-exuberant retail sidewalk display might affect someone who is not 100 per cent mobile.
It’s my fervent hope that my personal situation will be temporary. To be clear. I am not trying to speak for any community.
If I let myself, I could get angry about some of these issues. I could complain about a sidewalk to the city. But fixing a sidewalk happens when you fix the below-ground infrastructure and the entire road itself. These needed repairs take a plan, time and tax dollars. To the credit of the last municipal administration, there is a master plan to address our roads, over time.
My inconvenience or anger won’t help anything, despite the political forces that want to harness it. God knows, the appeal to our anger can be stronger than performative messages that come across as hubris. The thing is though, neither anger nor performative gestures of understanding will fix a sidewalk or a housing crisis (or you name it). Joining a chorus of anger is not being heard, although it might feel like it. And let’s face it, our history doesn’t contain a lot of examples of an angry mob running off to go do something good.
Perhaps I am just frustrated, which I can’t confuse with anger. I can’t run anywhere at the moment, angry or not. My temporary inconvenience pales in comparison to others I know. But I am thankful for the reminder that I must really try to listen more. And hope that others do too.
From my family to yours I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all those who celebrate it!
Thank you Trevor. You have given me a new mantra, “Joining a chorus of anger is not being heard”, to take into the new year. May your current struggles be fleeting and may you and yours reap the best of what the new year has to offer.
I feel your pain. After my partner passed away this past May, I began to make preparations to sell the big house. But in the process of purging all of the extra clap trap collected over the years, I managed to do myself injury to my hip, which has put me on the list for hip replacement surgery. After several weeks and no news from my surgeon, I called the office, only to receive a recorded message which basically said, if you are calling for a date for surgery, don’t call us, we’ll call you. When I asked my family doctor to advocate for me, what came back was that the funding for surgery for 2024 had run its limit and I would not be notified until January 2025. Is this Doug Ford’s method for manipulating towards privatization of healthcare?
When I put in my offer for a lovely little townhouse in Lindsay which is a raised bungalow style, two half flights of stairs, I was just walking with a cane and had no idea that by the time I would move in, I would be very dependent on a walker. Shortly after my move in, I had chair lifts installed, which are a Godsend to my ability to continue to live in my new abode. But the two levels require additional walkers, which I now have three. One for upstairs, one for downstairs, and one for the front door landing to take out to my car. Fortunately, I am blessed with still being able to drive, but getting the walker in and out of the car and maneuvering around stores is getting increasing difficult.
The one thing that has become increasingly noticeable to me is the kindness of total strangers, when I am trying to wrestle my walker in and out of the car. Sometimes, but not often, a stranger will come to my aid and help out, and the one thing that I have noticed that, more often, it is a woman, rather than an man. Perhaps it’s because I’m always out during the day and maybe the ratio of women verses men are shopping at that time of day, so I don’t want to point fingers, I’m just ever so grateful to whomever comes to my aid. But I do have to express my eternal gratitude to the family who’s adult son picked me up off the pavement at the Walmart on Landsdowne in Peterborough and his mom who helped me into my driver’s seat.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, when you are out and about and see a senior struggling with a mobility device or some shopping bags, it will do both our hearts some cheer if you could take the time to stop and offer some assistance.
Sorry to hear about your personal troubles, Trevor, but glad to hear you have not lost your ability to write or to think. Stoke can be so devastating. A stroke killed my brother when he was sixty. Not being able to drive is a terrible curse though; I hope you will regain mobility and again be able to drive. Driving and mobility are so vital to independence in our society. It is interesting to hear about your experiences trying to navigate sidewalks with walkers. I often wonder about that when I see people struggling in all sorts of weather with walkers and canes and even those brave ones who venture out in snow storms on their electric scooters. But it is amazing how we can adapt, especially if people don’t automatically dismiss us as useless if they see we struggle with mobility. I listened to “Short-Sighted” on CBC podcasts last night, narrated by someone losing his sight. I can relate as I have been diagnosed with macular degeneration. He describes a totally blind friend of his who surfs using sound to guide his movements. Like all of life, we all do our best to stay alive until we can’t any longer. I watched a black bird in my yard for several weeks; he had a dodgy wing that stuck up at a painful-looking angle. But he got down to the ground to feed using his beak to climb up and down the fence into the cedars to roost. I went out and sang Blackbird to him one evening right before that really cold spell. I haven’t seen him – or her – since.