A new pair of Reeboks (Richard and Julie’s Story)
When I met Richard he lived in an institution with few personal possessions and no privacy. Everything he owned was numbered and labelled with name tags. He had just undergone a very dangerous operation called a lipectomy, which had resulted in a large infected wound.
Richard's mobility was very limited. In fact, it was almost non-existent due to the fact he had been excessively over-weight for most of his life. His inability to walk meant that Richard had little independence in even the most basic necessities such as dressing and going tot he bathroom.
Apart from these physical problems, for the first time in his life, Richard was separated from his father. His mother had recently died and he had been placed in an institution after his surgery. His father lived a long way away and depended on public transport to visit Richard once a week.
Being removed from all that was familiar to him, Richard was unhappy, bewildered, frustrated and depressed. In spite of the seeming enormity of the problems in Richard’s life at the time, it now seems to me that the very small things, things that we take for granted, made an enormous difference to his life.
All of us need someone to care a sense of purpose, self-determination and a place to call home. Richard, unfortunately, like many people with disability, had few of these things.
A few years ago, life began to change for Richard. His health improved, he became more mobile and moved out of the institution into a group home with three other men. He now has his own room, has chosen and bought his own clothes and shoes (without a number or name tag in sight!). One of his proudest possessions is his new pair of Reeboks.
Richard is fast becoming more independent and is participating in the usual activities of life – washing, cleaning, shopping and helping his friends in their home. Every week he chooses what he wants to eat, where he wants to go (he loves the movies) and voices his opinions and needs at a weekly house meeting.
The ability to choose and determine his own activities is a basic freedom often denied to people with intellectual disability like Richard. Just ‘being there’ for Richard has encouraged others to treat him as a person who has the same needs as anyone else. A phone call is often all it takes for others to respond and be accountable for their care. Having someone in your life to come and speak up for you, allows others the opportunity to “see” that everyone deserves to be loved and is ‘lovable” and must not be forgotten.
Inside a service system it is so easy for people to become institutionalised. It is possible for the simplest decision to become complicated and bureacratised. When this happens, we lose sight of vulnerable people and their needs.
We all need someone to see things from our perspective, from OUTSIDE the system. To see other ways of doing things, not just the way it has always been done.
We are all individuals who need to be valued and loved. It is the little things we all take for granted, such as our place, our shoes, the chance to choose where we go or what to wear, that are so important to our sense of identity, of who we are.
Richard has taught me the importance of individual freedom and the tragedy of the denial. He is only beginning to experience the joy of being and expressing himself. I am blessed to be here to see it.
“Each friend
represents a world in us, a world of possibility not born until they arrive, and
it is only by this meeting that a new world is born” Anais Nin