Health & Fitness
Disability
October is Disability Awareness month. Open your heart to the true meaning of disability. (poem)
I was born with hearing and sight.
I am no longer hearing, for the world has gone silent.
I am no longer sighted, for the world has become dark.
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I am not deaf, for I am also blind.
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I see not, the dancing language of the hands.
I am not blind, for I am also deaf.
I hear not, the melody of the wind.
I am not able-bodied, for I cannot walk free.
I am trapped beneath the bonds of straps and braces.
What of my own kind?
Within the ranks of the deaf-blind, I am somehow different.
I am alone, a stranger in my own land.
I am just one, drowning among the many and the few.
I am battered but never broken.
I am slow but seldom lost.
I will with-stand the forces against me.
I will believe and always battle on.
You say I'm a nobody among the many and the few.
Who am I to be somebody?
Why dare I, to utter a challenge?
The answer lingers within us all.
I do it not because I am disabled.
I do it for I am human.
Angela C. Orlando
October, 2012