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| One of Adam's ABR sessions |
Sharon's new book, Ceramic to Clay, seeks to encourage people to understand trauma, to learn about authentic healing, to empower people to embrace their journeys and to understand their calling at a deeper level. She wants to share her story with those who have experienced life altering events and with the people and the communities who surround them. Her expectation seems clear and, hopefully, will be realized.
My expectations are different. Given the promotion of the book, articles and photos in our hometown media (where Adam spent his first 21 years), announcements through social networking, I expect a resurgence of humans into Adam's life. His many classmates and a plethora of teammates, his teachers and therapists, our friends and many family members . . . I expect them to rush here, to call, to send a card to celebrate the life of a thriving, joyful friend and relative. One old friend did immediately visit and it was so good for Adam. Are my expectations unrealistic or hasty? Is it because Adam is non-verbal and non-ambulatory? Are people afraid of a very challenged friend and don't know what to say or do? Is it because (12 years ago) many promised to walk by our side for as long as it takes and disappeared? Do they reject our path and did they hope that we would usher him into an institution? Will they make up "justification stories" to themselves? Am I wrong to have expectation? Or, is it simply the plague of indifference?
"What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?
Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction. " http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ewieselperilsofindifference.html, Elie Wiesel, 1999 (speech in Washington, D.C.)
So many of our severely challenged children and adults are pure and rich human beings whose lives are often re-defined by the stares, the avoidance, the pity, the indifference of their fellow human beings. There is no higher place in the universe than that reserved for those who honor the lives and the value of the resilient spirit of the profoundly affected by trauma at birth or by accident. And, for those who promised to be with the disabled and their caregivers for the "however long it takes" and either passively and indifferently disappear or actively "make up a story" about why they cannot or will not, well, it is not about getting over it, or moving on, for me it is about confronting their indifference.
