The third room. I can’t see the faces but I know I’m not alone.   The room is crowded with struggle.  I can’t make out what is going on but I can feel it.   Struggle.   I know it’s there.   In all its varied complexity.   I can’t tell if I’m on the outside looking in or if I’ve been allowed to enter.  

But I am reaching.  Reaching with all my strength to put on the shoes.  It is a mountain.    There are so many.  But I am reaching to walk in your shoes. The light is low and I can’t see well but I’m trying to understand.   The range of ability is overwhelming.  

The range of disability.  Aren’t those two words intertwined?   

In this room I feel able bodied and heavy.  It isn’t fair how life deals out cards.  It  doesn’t seem right.   Shouldn’t there be rules?   Why the range?  

What is the value in the weakest hands?  There is value, isn't there?   There must be.  

Ability, lack of it, those with too much of it.   

The range of ability spirals outward in so many directions. I can’t see well.  I don’t for a moment pretend I can get all these shoes on my feet. 

But I’m here.  I am squinting my eyes trying to see.  Trying to push aside the chaos and madness.  Reaching through the insanity and pain and struggle because I want to understand the range of human ability to create a stronger community to lift up those with disability.  

What is the responsibility when ability is yours to those who were dealt a less desirable hand?  

So many directions in this room.  Are You the one who had it all?   Ease of movement, speech, comprehension.  The ability that is your birthright.    The holy grail.  Did you lose it?  Do you know what you’re missing?  Or do you still have it?

Are you the one locked in your head? Communication broken into pointing, hand signals or darts of the eye, tapping?  Were you born without what we know as intellectual ability?  Living in a world of your own navigating things no one else can see or make sense of?

I find myself questioning what lessons one is forced to face when ability isn’t theirs.   What are the lessons when one cannot be touched or cannot handle being in environments that are stimulating, what is the purpose of the child that runs from everything.

Does disability come with gifts that can be shared?   Secrets?  Is there a whisper of a golden lining if we sit in awe with the variety nature has to offer?   What can we learn from each other?  What can we change and make better?  Are we  listening hard to those with disabilities?     Are we searching for purpose and growing in mindset? 

This third room.  I can’t see well and I don’t have all the answers, just questions and so many shoes to try to get on my feet.