Living With Intention

• November 27th, 2006

There has been a lot of loss in my community of late. A mother suddenly dies in England whose daughter is one of my closest friends, a former employee of Hope House, and a creative and energetic force in my neighborhood died at 38 years of age, barely a year after being diagnosed with cancer, and then a person we support passed away within six months of learning he had leukemia. All within a span of 2 weeks. So much sadness crammed within a tiny space of life.

I spoke with my friend in the UK and told her how much I wanted to be there, she assured me that by coming there in a few weeks as planned would be better. I asked her why and she said because that’s when I will need you most, when everyone else is gone. Makes sense I suppose. Being there when everyone else is gone, I guess that’s one of the things I want to do here at Hope House, I want us to be there, to occupy the empty spaces of loneliness, grief, and fear when we are needed most… and even more importantly to know when that is.

Myths and Resolutions

• November 3rd, 2006

John F Kennedy said, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie-deliberate, contrived and dishonest; but the myth-persistent, persuasive and unrealistic”. I think we at Hope House find ourselves constantly battling myths about people with disabilities. Sometimes these myths appear harmless, “you must be so patient and special to work with people who have disabilities”, and others are more blatantly harmful such as “people with disabilities need to be controlled for their own good”. All myths start I suppose with a bit of truth but end up becoming more false than real.

One of the most troubling myths for me is that people with disabilities are not lonely when they live with one another, either in a group home or institution. This of course is the cousin to the myth that people with disabilities are unable to live within their own home, hold down a job or contribute positively as citizens within their community.

What underpins all of these attitudes or more nicely put myths is that by sharing a label, people are the same. This to me is the central issue which is closely linked to people with disabilities not sharing equal worth, statue and rights as the rest of us. Of all the training, education, public events and efforts Hope House undertakes, the clear objective in my mind is to dispel the myths that have been created over centuries. What I have learned during this never ending process is that it’s not so simple to kill a myth; in fact no matter how many times the truth shows otherwise the myth still continues. So maybe its time for all of us to do some work on this. I’ve never been much on resolutions, don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of new beginnings, agreements for improvements and the like, but the ritual of making them on the same day each year seems so confining. But maybe the power of this ritual could be put to good use, what if we all resolve to dispel the myths that surround people with disabilities by including them in our lives? Maybe having a relationship with a person with a name versus the label is the best resolution we can make… it’s worth a try.