Author: Angela Van Etten

Categories
Awareness

Plan to Stay Safe

Firemen
Image by Matthias Groeneveld from Pixabay

What words come to mind when you read the following list: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, volcanoes, wildfires, winter storms? I think of danger, death, and destruction. But on April 30, National PrepareAthon! Day, we can plan so that death is not a consequence of any of these disasters.

Thankfully we don’t have to plan for every kind of disaster where we live. But we do need to be aware of, and ready for, potential hazards in our locale. The first step is to be informed when disaster is imminent. Signing up for emergency phone alerts gives us life-saving information targeted to our area.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

This emergency alert system will also broadcast on TV and radio. But a battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert are essential when the power goes out.

Safety should drive our decision whether to shelter in place or evacuate. Follow advice of emergency management officials on this one. For example, if your home is built to withstand hurricane force winds, it’s okay to hunker down behind shuttered windows. But don’t wait until the last minute to ask someone for help with your shutters. They’ll be too busy with their own place and you’ll be left blowing in the wind.

If your home can’t be made safe, decide whether you’ll evacuate to family or friends in a safe area or go to a general population shelter. Check in advance which one works for your disability and plan how you’ll get there. Do you have enough gas in the car? If you don’t have a vehicle and need accessible transportation to a shelter, make sure you’re on the manifest for a ride in an emergency. If you have medical equipment that requires electricity and you don’t have a generator at home, plan on going to a special needs shelter where you can stay connected to a power source. Find out if pre-registration is required. Those dependent on dialysis or other life-sustaining treatment need to find out where they should go.

If evacuation is ordered, learn the evacuation routes. Safeguard important and valuable papers, including model numbers and providers of assistive technologies so it can be replaced if lost or destroyed. Withdraw some cash.

Update your emergency supply kit, both at home and in the car, that includes water, nonperishable people and animal food, first aid supplies, and Bible. This is critical for survival if you lose power or get stranded in your car.

If separated from family during an emergency, know how you’ll contact one another afterwards. Establish a family meeting place that’s easy to find. Create phone contact lists for family members so you can text them with your location. Help rescue workers reach your loved ones if you’re incapacitated; type “ICE,” the acronym for “in case of emergency,” before a person’s name in your cell phone so they know who to call.

So how far along are you in your emergency planning? Procrastination could be a costly mistake.

This post highlights FEMA guidance at https://www.ready.gov/plan and should be consulted for other important details. Also see Emergency Management. National Council on Disability, accessed April 20, 2021. https://ncd.gov/policy/emergency-management and An ADA Guide for Local Governments. Making Community Emergency Preparedness and Response Programs Accessible to People with Disabilities, accessed April 20, 2021. https://www.ada.gov/emergencyprepguide.htm

Categories
Accessibility Medical

Tackling Inaccessible Medical Equipment

Cornea Diagnostic Equipment
Cornea Scanner

In 2020, I had eye surgeries to remove cataracts, implant intraocular lenses, and remove scar tissue that developed behind each implant. I enjoyed throwing out my old contact lenses and donating my eye glasses to charity. But the inaccessible medical equipment challenged my independence.

After 45 years of regular eye doctor visits, I was accustomed to being unable to reach ophthalmic diagnostic equipment. Typically, I gained the extra inches needed by stepping up onto a phone book. However, this simple solution was unavailable during my 12 pre- and post-op visits. Besides, who has phone books anymore?

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

I rejected the step stool staff offered explaining that my knees don’t bend and I couldn’t step onto it. Not ready to give up my independence, I also vetoed staff lifting me onto the stool. I chose to stand on reams of copy paper to gain additional height. Success. What I didn’t know was that we weren’t done.

Next was the cornea scanner. But copy paper wasn’t enough to elevate me to this machine and there was no escaping a stool. Yet I still insisted on accessing the equipment without being lifted. Fearing my fall, staff hovered close by as I used reams of copy paper to create a small step next to the stool and from there swing my leg up onto the stool. Independence maintained.

A couple of months later, I was challenged by an Ophthalmic Yag Laser System at the outpatient surgery center. The equipment accomplished two things: removing the unwanted membrane behind my lens implants and infringing on my independent access. None of my prior strategies got me high enough. I had no choice but to allow the surgeon to lift me onto a chair. But before doing so, I checked if he had a back problem and disclosed my weight. He assured me that he lifted weights way heavier than me in the gym.

Laser Surgery Machine
Laser Surgery Machine

After the procedure, I kicked into advocacy mode. Not everyone has a surgeon who can lift weights heavier than their patients. And what about wheelchair users who can’t stand on the floor let alone a chair? Because the surgeon has a financial interest in the surgery center, I put him on notice that I would be calling on him in the future to be pro-active in ordering accessible medical equipment. Documentation with photos, laid the groundwork for my communication with the manufacturer.

I later learned that the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board had issued technical criteria for medical diagnostic equipment (MDE) to be accessible to, and independently usable by, patients with disabilities, to the maximum extent possible. Although the MDE Appendix to 36 CFR Part 1195  has been effective since February 8, 2017, it cannot be enforced because authorities like the United States Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) have not adopted the MDE Standards as mandatory requirements for entities subject to their jurisdiction.

Does anyone hear the call to advocate for making accessible MDE mandatory? What’s your experience with MDE?

For additional reading, see Standards for Accessible MDE. A Rule by the Access Board January 9, 2017, accessed on April 15, 2021. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/09/2016-31186/standards-for-accessible-medical-diagnostic-equipment and “Access To Medical Care For Individuals With Mobility Disabilities.” United States DOJ and HHS 2010, accessed on April 15, 2021.  https://www.ada.gov/medcare_mobility_ta/medcare_ta.htm.

Categories
Celebrations

Celebrate the Gift of Siblings

Siblings Farewell Sydney

Over two-thirds of Americans have at least one sibling. The relationship is one of the most important and usually the longest in a person’s life—typically longer than with parents, spouses, or children. So let’s celebrate our brothers and sisters on April 10, #NationalSiblingsDay.

To the outside world, we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.

Clara Ortega

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

The siblings of people with dwarfism and disability are especially worthy of praise. As children, many siblings endure more public attention than they want and less attention from parents than they need. Parents love them just as much but, at times, the medical and other needs of their sibling with a disability are all consuming. To cap it off, siblings are often assigned extra duties to help out their brother or sister.

When I was writing “Dwarfs Don’t Live in Doll Houses,” the 1988 memoir of my childhood and young adult years, I asked my brother, Greg, and sister, Deborah, what it was like growing up with me.  Here are some of their reflections:

 It used to make me mad when people stared at you.

I received [a] bloody nose at school from Terry for teasing me about you. . . we had a fight and I came out second best.

It used to annoy me when people fussed over you, knowing that you thought them silly as well. . . but that kind of attention I never wanted anyway.

As for their response to being asked to do things for me—like carry my sun chair down to the beach or my book bag home from school—their recollections varied from annoyance to wincing when watching me carry a bag half my size. For the most part, I was independent and my disability wasn’t on their minds. “At home, I was the older sister and that’s how things were – just that.”

We enjoyed a happy childhood together in New Zealand, but as adults lived with our spouses in Australia and America. Despite the long distance, we continued to share our love and concern for each other. We have traveled thousands of miles to vacation together in all three countries. When visiting in the homes of my siblings, they made accommodations for Robert and I to be independent in the bathroom and kitchen.

As we have grown older and less mobile, Greg and Deborah have pushed wheelchairs, lifted scooters, and helped us up many stairs. In recent years, we have celebrated decade birthdays together with the destination chosen by the one with the birthday. Our 50th birthdays took us to Sydney, Australia; Key West, Florida; and Whangamata, New Zealand; our 60th birthdays were in North Carolina, New York, and Hawaii.

Why wait for your sibling’s birthday? Celebrate them his week. Share how much they mean to you.

For more of my writings, subscribe to my weekly blog at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/ Used print books of Dwarfs Don’t Live in Doll Houses are available on Amazon.com; an e-book is coming soon. 

Categories
Awareness

Shine Blue on Autism in April

Visual communication board

“People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are like salt-water fish who are forced to live in freshwater. They are fine if you just put them into the right environment. When the person with ASD and the environment match, the problems go away and they even thrive. When the environments don’t match, they seem disabled.” Humphrey (2008).

Language impairment, social deficits, repetitive behaviors, sleep issues, gastrointestinal disorders, and anxiety are characteristics of ASD: 40% are nonverbal; 70% have average to above average IQ scores.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

For the families affected by autism, each day can be an adventure in uncertainty:

  • Will Johnny have a meltdown at school forcing mom to take off work again?
  • Will Max make it through a quick stop at the grocery store or will he scream down the aisles?
  • Should we pay for Suzie’s therapy or buy Christmas presents?

The Hope Center for Autism in Stuart, Florida is a public charter school that helps families navigate these adventures. Parents entrust their children to staff dedicated to supporting sensory, communication, and self-management needs in preparation for a successful life.

“Children with autism are colorful, they are often very beautiful, and like the rainbow they stand out.” Adele Devine

One Hope Center staff member dreamed of working with ASD kids as far back as eighth grade, others saw it as a stepping stone to gain pediatric experience before graduating to working with adults. But after several years at the Hope Center, staff no longer see their jobs as temporary. They fell in love with the children, found their calling, and can’t imagine doing anything else. Excited to go to work every morning, they leave every day feeling part of a big, connected community.

“If they can’t learn the way we teach, we teach them the way they learn.” O. Ivar Lovaas

“Autism makes you listen louder. It makes you pay attention to an emotional level as well as an intellectual level.” Jace King

“Adapting our own perception, following rather than leading and building bridges are all keys to helping the child with Autism learn.” Adele Devine

Hope Center days are filled with learning, fun, and energy. Staff do things a little differently and adapt to change in unique ways:

  • Incorporate blue, the favorite color.
  • Use a picture symbol vocabulary board with every lesson.
  • Use fidget toys.
  • Sing skip counting songs.
  • Bond with and earn student trust.

“Cherish the children marching to the beat of their own music. They play the most beautiful heart song.” Fiona  Goldsworthy

“If we strive for the love, joy, and happiness the students have, the world would be a much BETTER place.” Gina Williamson

Special thanks to several staff at the Hope Center for Autism, https://www.hopecenterforautism.org,  who contributed to this post: ESE Teachers Natalie Rzeznik and Alexis Matonti; paraprofessionals Maria Gutierrez, Sandy Jerrells, Gina Williamson, and Sarah Zeilinga; Tundra, Jungle, and behavior staff; Theodore Hassel, PE Coach; Laura Drake, Aftercare Provider; Katarina Suarez, Speech-Language Pathologist; and Joanne Sweazey, Executive Director.

This post first appeared on Angela Muir Van Etten’s blog on April 5, 2021 at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/. Readers are encouraged to share the post, but are asked to include the website link.

Categories
Open

YOU’RE INVITED: Apply for Book Launch Team Membership

Application Form
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Be on the team that launches—ALWAYS AN ADVOCATE: Champions of Change for People with Dwarfism and Disabilities—a book documenting radical changes in organization, respect, and equal access for thousands of people with dwarfism and disabilities.

Find out  (1) what it takes to lead a charity that changes lives; (2) how laws were passed to stop a morally bankrupt practice; and (3) who knocked down barriers to equal access in buildings and facilities, public transit, schools, and so many more?

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

As a book launch team member, share the answers found in the third book of my trilogy and show how positive changes are possible in our chaotic world.

Apply now and through April 29, the day wrecking cranes began tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate in 1990. Be active in the disability movement that continues to break down environmental, attitudinal and system barriers.

Consider the benefits of being a team member:

  • Receive a complimentary autographed copy of Always An Advocate.
  • Exclusive, private, and direct communication with me as the Author and other team members.
  • FUN! Contests with prizes reserved for book launch team members!

Never been on a book launch team before? No worries. If you agree to do the following, you can do it:

  • Subscribe to my weekly blog (if not already a subscriber).
  • Accept Angela’s invitation to join the book launch team’s secret FaceBook group.
  • Agree to visit the team’s group at least once a week to support book marketing.
  • Read a pdf copy of the book prior to the release date. 
  • Post a favorable book review on amazon.com when requested by Angela at the beginning of the book launch month. (If you can’t recommend it to others, no hard feelings, but please agree not to post a negative review.)
  • Share book news on your social media platforms; consider posting a selfie reading the book.
  •  Share your enthusiasm for the book with your LPA chapter, district and any disability organizations that you belong to.

Other book launch team contributions include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Recommend Always An Advocate to family, friends, coworkers and anyone else who will listen.
  • Post a favorable online book review on retail outlets where books are sold, such as Barnes and Noble and Books A Million.
  • Post a favorable book review on Goodreads.
  • If you have a blog, post a book review or interview with Angela.
  • Ask your local library to order copies of Always An Advocate.
  • Gift a copy to family and friends.
  • If you belong to a book club, suggest they read Always An Advocate.
  • Write and submit a book review for your local paper.
  • Anything else the team recommends.

To apply for membership on this book launch team, please text me at 772-834-3951 or private message me on FaceBook with your email address and I’ll send you the link to my website where you’ll find the simple, one page application form. Remember to submit your application on or before April 29th.

Categories
Celebrations International

Presidents Meet on St. Pat’s Day

Lincoln Monument

When Bobby walked towards my desk in the New Zealand Embassy library in Washington, DC 40 years ago, for some inexplicable reason my heart beat faster. I was unnerved by the proximity of his brown eyes gazing directly into mine at the same exact height. I don’t remember a thing he said.

Bobby was all smiles as he came closer to me, a petite 27-year-old with a rare type of dwarfism. I looked nothing like the four feet tall, plump, middle-aged woman he had imagined.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

As president of Little People of America, Bobby was on official business meeting me, the president of Little People of New Zealand. I was visiting America on a Winston Churchill Fellowship from the NZ government to research disability civil rights laws and public relations programs designed to improve attitudes towards people with disabilities. My intention was to interview Bobby as part of my research, but it became much more than that.

Our talks began with a three-mile trip to the Lincoln Memorial. Not so easy for this 32-year-old man raised in the small town of Jupiter, Florida. His two months living in the DC area was not enough for him to adjust to driving his over-sized car, that barely fit in traffic lanes, around the confusing DC road system. He got lost and flustered. And the more lost he got, the faster he drove. He even asked me for directions—someone who had been in DC for less than 24 hours and couldn’t see out the car window. He relaxed when we finally pulled into the Memorial parking lot.

We walked across the street and Bobby extended his hand to help me up a curb. However, he continued holding my hand after both my feet were set on the sidewalk. Not ready for such a bold move, I let go of his hand. After all, this could hardly be called a date.

I didn’t need his hand as we rode the elevator to avoid the 57 step climb to President Lincoln’s statue that towered above us at more than six times our height. Like millions before us, we were inspired by the display of Lincoln’s words from the Gettysburg address: all men are created equal. We knew what it was like to be treated as second-class citizens and shared a life mission to achieve equality for people with dwarfism and other disabilities.

Pizza was our choice for the evening meal. Corned beef and cabbage never crossed our minds until a drunken Irishman saw the arrival of two little people as good luck. He invited himself to our table to share Irish jokes. I was impressed with Bobby’s diplomacy when he persuaded him to move along and declined the offer to join him at the Saint Patrick’s Day parade.

Instead, Bobby returned me to my guesthouse where he was more interested in kissing me good night on the cheek than kissing any blarney stone.

And no, it wasn’t love at first sight; that took two weeks.

This post is a condensed excerpt from chapter 1, My Heart Beat Faster, in Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith. The book is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books a Million.

Categories
Dignity

Dwarf Tossing Throwback

Prohibited
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Dwarf tossing masquerades as a ‘sport’ when barroom bullies compete for prize money awarded to whoever throws a dwarf the farthest. From 1985 to 2012, it was like a perennial weed and you never knew who would sow the seeds—a newspaper columnist, a bar owner, a business promoter, a dwarf wanting to be tossed, a radio station seeking publicity, a dwarf challenging the constitutionality of a state law ban, or a state representative filing a bill to repeal the ban as obsolete.

From the beginning, Little People of America (LPA) successfully advocated against dwarf tossing in establishments licensed to serve alcohol as a morally bankrupt practice offensive by any standard of human decency.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

The debacle was grounded in Chicago with a public relations campaign and with legislative bans in Florida and New York in 1989 and 1990, respectively.

So when Representative Workman sought to repeal the Florida law during Dwarfism Awareness Month in 2011, he was deluged with resistance. LPA demanded that the bill be withdrawn and bombarded him with:

  1. protest letters from little people, family and friends, and disability organizations;
  2. negative media attention; and 
  3. 4,834 signatures on a change.org petition that each triggered a ping when landing in his email inbox.

Prior to his bill, Workman had never met anyone with dwarfism! But after four weeks of relentless advocacy, he became acutely aware of all that is wrong with dwarf tossing:

  • It generates harmful stereotypes that often marginalize even the most highly qualified and educated people with dwarfism as they try to enter the mainstream employment market. LPA President, Gary Arnold, and American Association of People with Disabilities President, Mark Perriello
  • It objectifies the dwarf community making the individual who is tossed like a shot put or a javelin thrown in a track and field event. LPA President, Gary Arnold
  • In a day and age when society is confronting bullying, it is a shame that this bill takes us backwards. It enables bullying. LPA Vice President of Public Relations, Leah Smith
  • We feel the pain all the way down deep in our bones when we have to fight for our basic dignity as human beings. LPA Advocacy Director, Joe Stramondo
  • Civil liberties are not put at risk by upholding the ban, but are supported by it.Reality TV Star, Bill Klein
  • A career in dwarf tossing is likely to secure the tossee a check from the Social Security Administration or a plot in the cemetery. LPA Advocate, Angela Van Etten
  • It creates an environment so toxic that little people fear ‘copycat’ behavior and being thrown against their will. LPA Advocate, Angela Van Etten

When two past LPA Presidents—Robert and Angela Van Etten—confronted Workman in his office, he acknowledged that his bill set back little people decades with ‘freak show’ imagery and a return to the 1930s era of circus show entertainment. Although he refused to withdraw the bill, he agreed not to promote it. And the bill died in committee on March 9, 2012.

This post is a condensed version of chapter 13, A Perennial Weed, in “ALWAYS AN ADVOCATE: Champions of Change for People with Dwarfism and Disabilities” coming in Fall 2121.

To read more of my writings, please visit my website at https://angelamuirvanetten.com.

Categories
Transportation

Tired of Waiting In Airports?

Waiting at Airports

The average person spends about an hour a day waiting. But if you have a disability, waiting only one hour in an airport would be miraculous.

Waiting begins at check-in. Although seat assignments, boarding passes and baggage tags can be issued in advance, mobility devices require in person check-ins to  answer safety questions and make departure and arrival arrangements for riding the device to and from the airplane door.

Waiting continues at the airport security checkpoint. Typical passengers reportedly wait 28 minutes in security lines, but people with physical disabilities often wait longer.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today?

We wait for someone to lift our carry-on bag onto the conveyor belt and pass a bin in which to place items for scanning or examination. And then we wait for an agent to direct a bypass from the metal detector for a personal pat-down and test for any trace of explosives on our hands or mobility device.

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), TSA PreCheck™ program, expedites security inspections with removal exemptions for shoes, belts, light jackets, laptops and 3-1-1 compliant liquids, but travelers and their medical equipment are still subject to imaging and inspection. Plus the TSA PreCheck™ background check, fingerprinting and personal interview are conducted off-site prior to traveling and cost at least $85. Not worth the effort for occasional travelers and definitely a problem for people like me whose fingerprints are no longer legible.

After security clearance, there’s waiting in line for a cup of coffee or a restaurant table. Despite the generous number of stalls, there’s often a line in the bathroom. It’s especially annoying when waiting outside the accessible stall occupied by a nondisabled person changing their clothes and doing hair and makeup. Transit layovers involve lots of waiting in gate lounges and restaurants. Media, meditating/praying in the chapel, people watching, reading, shopping, writing cards and emails, and sleeping fill the time.

People mistake our priority boarding status for less waiting. But when deplaning, they learn we’re last off. We wait for baggage handlers to bring our scooters to the jetway. On a good day, the scooters are brought to us; on a bad day, instructions are ignored, the scooters are delivered to baggage claim, and we must wait for a skycap. Arriving early in the morning or during peak hours means a long wait. For example, when our plane arrived at Heathrow airport in the UK at 5:00 a.m. we had to wait one hour before any transport staff came on duty. The upside is that by the time we make it to baggage claim our bags are either circulating on the carousel or have been off-loaded. The downside is that off-loaded bags are often taken to a storage area where we wait for staff to retrieve them.

Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

Isaiah 40:31

To read more, go to my website at  https://angelamuirvanetten.com where you can subscribe to my weekly blog and find several retail links to my book, “Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith.”

Categories
Medical

Replacing Body Parts

Hip scar

Pain, joint deterioration and hairline fractures in both hips dictated Robert’s use of crutches. For months, the morning sound of his crutches clip-clopping around the house substituted for my alarm clock, except for the inability to set the time for when I was ready to get up. But clearly it was time to schedule hip replacement surgery.

Although we lived in Rochester, New York, Robert scheduled surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio given their hip replacement expertise and dwarfism experience. But our gratitude for health insurance that covered out-of-state surgeries dissolved when my employer switched to an HMO health plan that favored in network surgery. Our prayers of desperation were answered favorably when the HMO agreed that going out-of-state was medically necessary.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

Robert prepared himself mentally for surgery by snorkeling at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, Florida. Although immediately surrounded by a fearsome school of barracudas, he blew extra bubbles when they didn’t mistake him for a meal! Robert’s spirits were lifted when he found the 16-foot underwater statue, Christ of the Abyss, with Jesus’s arms reaching out to remind Robert of His presence.

In physical preparation, Robert donated two units of his own blood. He also shared a medical article on anesthesia and dwarfism and refused any anesthetic until the anesthesiologist assured him she had read the article. In spiritual preparation, I found strength in Scripture:

Some boast in chariots and
some in horses,
But we will boast in the name
of the LORD, our God.

Psalm 20:6-7

Twenty-four years ago today, God answered our prayers. Robert returned to his hospital room after the surgery high as a kite tanked up on three pints of blood and morphine. He repeatedly shared God’s blessing with the transporter and greeted me with enthusiasm.

On his way to his first physical therapy session, a disheveled, unshaven Robert asked me, “How do I look?” I answered, “Wonderful. You look better and better every day.” A single male nurse overheard the conversation and said, “Every man should have a wife like you.”

When the medical social worker was making discharge plans, she asked about arrangements for airlifting Robert from Cleveland to Rochester. She was dumbfounded to learn that our plan was for me to drive the 250 miles with Robert reclined on the back seat with pillows, a water bottle, and urinal. No problem. Robert’s 40 inches in length easily fit across the back seat, hospital staff helped him into the vehicle in Cleveland, and church friends helped him out in Rochester. These friends also set up bathroom accommodations—a handgrip, support rails, and a platform around the toilet so that his legs didn’t dangle.

Once Robert recovered from the shock of a two-week house arrest, he made good use of his computer working at home and doing our taxes online between therapy and nurse visits. We thanked God then and now as his prosthesis remains stable.

What is your experience with body part replacements?

This is a condensed version from chapter 15 in “Pass Me Your Shoes.” For a full account, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com for several retail links to the book and subscribe to my weekly blog.

Categories
Character

“If You Can Be Anything, Be Kind”

Kindness
Image by Prawny from Pixabay

For 13 years, I lived in a city that was twice designated as “the kindest city in America,” first in 1940 and then in 1992. Rochester, New York earned this moniker in 1992 when university students pretended to accidentally drop something, need change, or be disabled and needing assistance. The title went to Rochester because more people went out of their way to help than in 35 other cities studied.

When Readers Digest reported this story in July 1994, the kindness trait was attributed to the transformation of the city more than a century earlier when evangelist Charles G. Finney held religious revivals in Rochester in 1830, 1842, and 1856. When thousands, across all social classes and ages, converted to Christianity the moral character of the city changed for the better and people lived to do good.

Want to subscribe to receive blog updates sign up today!

I no longer live in Rochester or know the current character of the city, but I do know that God shows kindness to all people regardless of whether they follow Him: the sun comes up every morning, birds sing, flowers bloom, the list is endless. Likewise, God gave us all the capacity to be kind. Yes, everyone. Wherever we live, whatever our faith, we can be kind to one another. “Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give.”

Kindness to a complete stranger, a family member, or a coworker makes the world less caustic and more caring. February 17th, #RandomActsOfKindnessDay, encourages kindness. According to actor Morgan Freeman, we can change the world one random act of kindness at a time. And the world surely needs changing!

We can all share examples of how a simple act of kindness made our day. I have certainly benefited from neighbors showing me kindness by bringing in my garbage bin from the end of the driveway, dragging fallen palm fronds to the vegetation pile for pick up, or helping to lift or carry something heavy. Church and family members have been kind in too many ways to count. Plus, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” This is true for me when grocery shopping, pumping gas, or retrieving luggage from an airport baggage carousel. But Tennessee Williams gets credit for the quote. 

So this February 17th how will we show kindness to people with disabilities? Sometimes a smile is all it takes. According to William Arthur Ward, “A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” Other ideas include:

  • Allowing someone with a mobility impairment to jump ahead of you in the line
  • Helping someone in distress like the driver who pulled over to help a woman whose front wheel on her wheelchair slid off the sidewalk and got stuck in a garden
  • Calling someone who is staying safe at home during the pandemic
  • Donating to a thrift store that employs people with disabilities
  • Volunteering at a food bank serving people whose disability income does not put enough food on the table

For more of my writings, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com where you can subscribe to my weekly blog, find several retail links to my book—“Pass Me Your Shoes”—and get updates on the Fall 2021 publication of the third book in my dwarfism trilogy, Always An Advocate.