Erynn Brook:
I met a girl on the train last night.
I was on my way home after work. It’s about 10pm, and the subway is pulling up to my stop. I’ve been stressed about my own stuff for days now and I’m in my little bubble and just as I stand up the girl across from me starts talking.
She’d been looking at me and I hadn’t really noticed. Her lips were barely moving, but I took out one earbud and said “pardon?” And she said “are you getting off soon?” And I said yes. The train was mostly empty. But then I noticed she was holding a laminated sheet of paper out.
My friend Sly posted a link to this on Twitter and it’s wonderful, sweet, touching and a little sad.
Man, we have no idea of what some people face every day, do we? Thanks for the link.
Yeah – that’s exactly why I posted it. You’re welcome.
I’ve been linked that story through three different sources now…it is amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.
This reminds me of a time I was leaving a grocery store, and noticed a woman hanging over her walker. Not saying anything, not asking for help, just kind of waiting there.
I leaned in and asked if she needed help, she replied “If you don’t mind, I am just waiting to regain my strength”. I was amazed, much as the person who wrote the linked post. I leaned in and she pushed off into my arms, I was shocked at just how heavy someone is “dead weight”, it made me wonder how she ever held herself up. I struggled a bit to hold her up, but re-positioned myself, and was able to hold her up.
Luckily another guy was walking buy and moved in to help, after asking. We both helped her into her car, she said “thank you”. I asked if she’d be okay on her own, she said “yes”. But, I still felt like I should help, she said “no, really, I’ll be okay”. It amazed me, like this story does, how insignificant some of my daily “issues” are by comparison.
I say this not to lessen this girl’s experiences, because she has a tough road and is walking it with the kind of perseverance I will never have. But I need to relate a more extreme case.
If I could post anonymously I’d provide more details, but I know someone who’s daughter started suffering seizures due to a mitochondrial genetic problem at just a few years old. She’s basically frozen in her development now, despite being 18. She will never have as much freedom as this girl has.
The government is fucking with her. In BC at age 18, her benefits basically stop unless she’s living with someone other than her parents, and as long as they’re alive there’s nobody she’s safer with.
Yea, insurance anywhere still has a long long way to go.
I donated a kidney to my son. He was able to get Medicare D, which covers prescriptions for two years. Think about that… 2 years. After which? Well, if you don’t have insurance? Nothing, you can go die now.
Luckily he had insurance through me, and now with his own job, does as well. But if he didn’t? He’d be dead. the doctors, and staff, all said, “just come to us, we have many samples, and even if not, we will make sure you have the medication”.
Something has got to change.
Speaking of “dead weight.” The last time we visited my mother at her apartment (before realizing that she needed to be placed in a nursing home), we found her sitting on the floor by her bed, having been there almost immobile for an unknown amount of time. She could no longer properly maintain her meds or coherently restore herself to a manageable state.
Merely attempting to sit her up on the bed felt almost impossible.
I’m sorry to hear about this. Was this lack of government support something new, or had this failure of public policy always been in place?
Yes, you don’t realise just how difficult it is to move “mostly bags of water” until you have to. Or, according to an article I just read in the NYT, mostly bags of bacteria, may be more appropriate.
Sorry to hear about your mother. My father found my grandmother that way, after she fell trying to get in bed, she was there for hours. Luckily, he could take her in after the surgery. She made it to 100, and had a great attitude the whole way.
I believe it’s just always been in place: there are different laws covering children vs. adults, even when the adults will never function as adults.
I have some hope I can talk to the parents about finding a better community for them to all live in. Instead of a detached home, they might be better in a duplex or something else. I’m not sure what the exact legal requirements are, but surely there’s a way to live under different addresses and still have her safe.