Parking and Other Perks

Sometimes when I get off the phone with one of my closest friends, I’m struck by how different our lives have become. We grew up together in a typical, middle class suburb in Connecticut. We lived in nice subdivisions and attended public school. Neither of us stood out in any particular way.

Now she lives in a rural part of the country. And I mean rural. She raises chickens for the eggs and, occasionally, for the meat. When she wants a hot shower she chops wood and lights the burner on the boiler to heat the water. She grows her own vegetables and keeps a “parts car” in her driveway. She has three wonderful boys – all typical, healthy kids.

When I want a hot shower I turn on the faucet and wait a few minutes. When I’m hungry and tired there are places that will deliver pizza to my door. I shop at a grocery store for fresh veggies and have a mechanic repair my car. I have my two girls – one with special needs.

When we talk, my discussions about therapies, surgeries and IEPs that sound so mundane to me must strike her as surreal. Her kids get up in the morning and go to school. There are no discussions about inclusion. No meetings to arrange for adaptations. No plans to handle extended absence following surgeries.

Her boys participate in Boy Scouts and play Little League. She has never hunted for an adaptive sports league or forced her way into an organization in order to give her child a glimpse of a typical life. I’m sure she wonders how I learned to write a Medicaid application just as I wonder how (and where!) she learned to pluck a chicken.

How could two such ordinary people end up leading such extraordinary lives? Yet, most of the time neither of us sees our own life as extraordinary. I do what I have to do to give Amanda the best life I can. Just as she does what she has to in order to give her boys a good life. However, we both have to do very different things to meet those goals.

Despite our different life styles, we always make each other laugh. She can help me see the levity in a botched diagnosis just as I can help her find the humor in her daily grind. When I talk to her I realize that although my life is very different from the lives of the people around me, lots of people’s lives are different. And different isn’t always bad even when you didn’t chose it.

After all, I get great parking spaces when I travel with Amanda and I never, ever have to kill my own food.