Me and the wheelchair
I was 16 when I got one hip replaced, and then five months later, the other. And then came the day when they brought the wheelchair to my bedside.
I don't remember being lifted into the chair; nor do I remember what it felt like to sit for the first time in over two years. But I remember impatiently listening to someone explain how to make the chair work, that I should push the red button and once the chair was on, carefully move the joystick in the direction I wanted to go. I remember a rushing in my mind, the rest of the room blurring, the only clarity: me and the wheelchair.
As effortless as breathing
I remember my whole body, all of me, straining to go, to move and then, finally, after what seemed like hours, someone, I know not who, saying "now try it". I pushed forward on the joystick and the chair moved and it was as effortless as breathing.
I left the room on my own and without help for the first time since I had been admitted. I pushed the joystick right. The chair turned and I drove down the wide hallway, past the other rooms, only dimly aware of the kids watching me, through the door at the end of the hallway, turning left past a bank of elevators. On the other side, there was an empty ward and I leaned forward, pressed the automatic door opener and went through.
The door closed behind me and I was alone, and it was glorious.
I walked
I felt no separation between me and the joystick that made the chair go in the direction I wanted, no more careful practice was needed for it were as if the chair and I had been waiting for each other, prepared to join together. And as I drove down the wide corridor, past darkened rooms and empty beds, in solitude and silence for the first time in years, the chair became my legs and I no longer drove; I walked.
And when I re-entered the ward from which I came, walking past the staff, they smiled widely in surprise, congratulating me and I can still feel the triumphant grin I wore those three decades ago as I came from silence into noise. I felt reborn, no longer trapped in bed, waiting for others to bring me what I needed, but now a person who could get it for myself.
Wings to fly
In that chair and in its, so far, three successors, I have moved to Canada, gone to university, worked, danced, held my sister's babies, lived in my own apartment, bought groceries, volunteered, paid taxes, sat by my father's bed as he died, loved and cried and laughed and lived.
Strangers tell me earnestly that they would kill themselves should they lose the use of their legs and I am ever surprised to the point of speechlessness that they are so blinded by the lack of walking they see only constraint and limitation. That they cannot see there are no ropes to bind me in place; that this chair with wheels gives me wings to fly.
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