I’m Still Here

45 years after the accident that broke her neck and partially paralyzed her three weeks after her 18th birthday, my mother is no stranger to the difficulties of living as a person with a physical disability. “For 17 years I was like everybody, I didn't even get to enjoy my 18th, just about to graduate high school and then all of a sudden, you know, all that's wiped out, it's very depressing.”

The rainy Valentine's Day of 1980 is not a day to be forgotten for my mom. A typical drive to school in the passenger seat turned near fatal after an overcorrection from the driver of the vehicle sent the car flipping 5 times out into the middle of a field. When the car finally came to a stop the vehicle was upside down. The two girls inside were alive, her friend walked away, she did not.

The healing process was not easy. Within the first 6 months of her healing journey, she had legally died three separate times. Because of her fragile condition, my mom stayed in the hospital for almost 4 months. The physical disability was not the only thing she was grappling with though, a serious brain injury that had come along with the accident had rendered her amnesic, the last year of her life she had totally forgotten. Returning to high school was also challenging, graduating a year later because of the accident and later moving to college by herself.

A moment she remembers vividly is going to the disability office on her college campus while using a wheelchair for transport, and being able to get out of the wheelchair. She remembers the look on other wheelchair users' faces in the office and the guilt she felt was profound. “I wasn’t able-bodied enough for the able-bodied people, I wasn’t disabled in the for the disabled people. And so when you're in that kind of limbo between the two worlds is not easy.”

Life after the accident was completely different for her, the modeling career she had worked so hard for was now in jeopardy; a contract she had gotten to work in Mexico now rescinded and her personal dynamics with those she knew, totally different.

Growing up deeply religious, she was no stranger to the church. A devout Baptist, my mom remembers going to church after the accident and feeling fearful at the people approaching her that she couldn’t remember, the amnesia making it hard for her to interact with those she once knew. Further, the spiteful remarks of her own grandmother that she had been crippled by God as a punishment stays with her to this day.

My mom knew she always wanted children and her doctors telling her she would never be able to have children after the accident didn't stop her. Giving birth to my brother, Joshua, in 1997, then experiencing four miscarriages and later giving birth to me in 2004. But pregnancy was the easiest part, giving birth to me permanently altered her body; a slightly misplaced epidural caused permanent nerve damage to her back that still affects her today.

Life as a mother with a disability was nerve-wracking for my mom, worried that my brother and I would be embarrassed by her disability or that other parents would think less of her because of the challenges she faced physically with raising us. Throughout my childhood though I never fully grasped what made my mom different. To me, she was just my mom and while she might not have been able to do all the physical things other parents could, that didn't make her any less of a parent to me, I loved her all the same.

Living independently can sometimes be no easy feat for those living with physical disabilities. “I can’t go shopping without planning all of it out and trying to have someone go with me. If no one can go with me I just have to hope someone will be there to help me, if they’re not, sometimes I just have to turn around and come back home.”

Her decision to move to North Carolina after I graduated high school showed her the harsh reality of the lack of accessibility around the US. Regardless of where she moves, accessibility is not of the utmost importance to many. Relying so heavily on the assistance of others is hard, “It really messes with your psyche.”

Even 45 years after the accident that changed my mom's life, representation and accessibility within the world we live in has not changed to the extent that it should have. “I wish that there were people that would show that disabled people can be mothers, or even fathers or whatever, and, and raise their children, their able bodied children.”

When doctors told her to be realistic– that she would never walk again after the accident– my mom stayed strong. She was determined to prove them wrong and has kept that determination ever since, and when she left the hospital in June 1980, she walked out on her own.

From being totally paralyzed after the accident, receiving surgery to help fuse her spine, and going through intense physical therapy to regain her ability to walk- to now living independently, navigating the world as her mobility changes, and wanting her story to inspire others- she stays confident. “I think people need to keep a positive mind set, don’t let people tell you what you can and cannot do.”

“That's what I do, I keep on going.”