I’m a big fan of multiculturalism. Canada, in my opinion, has been strengthened in uncountable ways by its diversity. Our country is like a patchwork quilt, the whole is made up of many different pieces all sewn together to form a common cause. Not everyone finds the clashing colours and patterns attractive but, with a bit of squinting, we can all agree it works…more or less.
Yet, for all the truly great things Canadians have going for them (and we ranked the 13th happiest country in the world last year and place in the Top 10 of ‘Best Countries’ almost every year), a lot of citizens don’t identify a purely Canadian. Many of us add a prefix to our nationality—Irish-Canadian, for example. Being proud of a motherland is totally understandable. Our backgrounds help shape us, after all. And a nod to ‘the old country’ and the ancestry it represents seems a reasonable acknowledgement.
Only we don’t stop there. No, we divide ourselves further. By faith, by race, by political affiliation, even by which sporting teams we cheer for. Individualism defines modern society…unless you’re handicapped.
Maybe being a disabled-Canadian makes me ultra-sensitive to how people like me are treated. But it seems to me that, far too often, we get lumped together. It doesn’t seem to matter what your handicap is or how it affects you—deafness and blindness is tossed into the melting pot with people who are lame or mute or what-have-you. “The disabled” is a collective noun. And it’s usually used in a dismissive way.
Other groups are treated with similar contempt. The poor, most notably. But those people share one common factor—they all lack money. What do the disabled have in common? Usually nothing.
All of which is a longwinded way of saying, people with handicaps are still people. Each is distinct. Even people living with the exact same disability will be different from one another. Take me and Richie. We were both born with spinal muscular atrophy and raised in Capreol, ON but that’s where our similarities end.
Richie was a few years older than me and left our little hometown as a young man. I looked up to him while he was here—he was in a rock band (Diamond Fortress), had long hair, and always seemed to have attractive women hanging around him—and that admiration only grew as we both aged. He advocated and campaigned for various causes, co-founding the Sudbury Muscular Dystrophy Chapter, and worked the system with both skill and determination. Leveraging dedicated volunteers and local businesses, Richie organized dozens of events/fundraisers, and his decades of effort earned him accolades…not to mention awards. He stood up so well and so often, not just for himself but for others, that he became known as: ‘The Voice’. Richie, in short, did stuff.
I, on the other hand, don’t. Oh, I went to school—probably for longer than I needed to—and my days are often full of laughter. But for all the fun had, and continue to have, I never pushed. Where he was a doer, I was a dreamer. Richie performed with others, in front of still others; I read alone, daydreamed alone, and wrote alone.
We weren’t really friends over the last couple decades, more acquaintances. Our worlds were different but we still shared the odd word (often over social media) just the occasional “Hey”. I cannot say his life was better than mine (there’s not much I’d change even if it were possible), just different. I found happiness in doing my thing, sticking close to home, writing silly stories, and generally keeping a low profile, while he found his in music, travel, and kicking down barriers. But no matter what we did or didn’t do, society still categorized us the same: as disabled.
Every culture has its heroes. Often these people and their accomplishments exist in a vacuum, known only to their fellows. This is especially true amongst the disabled community. Many Canadians are surprised to know there even is a disabled community—I sure was. My somewhat solitary nature combined with the isolation of my hometown to keep me from discovering that disability is more than just a condition…it’s a calling. For some, at least.
Richie made a difference with his life. There are plenty of other handicapped Canadians out there doing the same every day. I admire their hard work—and make no mistake, any work undertaken by the disabled is hard—but don’t count myself among them. Promoting a cause is not in my wheelhouse. And that’s okay. We can’t all fight the good fight. Being different is not a cause to complain. There’s strength in diversity…even amongst ‘The disabled’.