Motorized Wheelchair

 I was driving the backroads of Sanford last week when I saw a motorized wheelchair on the road ahead of me.

I immediately thought, “That’s ridiculously unsafe. Taking your motorized wheelchair on the road. Geez.”

As I approached the wheelchair, I noticed that there was not just one person on the wheelchair, but two!

A kid was sitting on the driver’s lap!

I continued thinking, “That’s super unsafe! A kid shouldn’t be riding as a passenger on a motorized wheelchair on a well-traveled road!”

Then I passed the wheelchair and took a closer look.

It was one of my students.

Riding on his dad’s lap.

His dad had an accident a few years ago and was left paralyzed.

“Still,” I thought. “That’s not safe.”

I pulled over in a parking lot for a few moments to wait on a friend who was following me.

As I sat waiting, I tried to find my student and his dad in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t.

I was wondering where they had gone when suddenly I saw a wheelchair zooming toward my passenger door.

At the exact moment I saw the wheelchair, my student looked into my car and we made eye contact.

He immediately grinned his wide, white-toothed grin.

He looked so happy.

He and his dad got a little way up the road before my friend caught up with me,

So I passed them once I got going again.

As I did, my student turned his head and grinned.

I could tell he had been waiting for me.

We may have waved.

I don’t remember.

I was so taken aback by how proud he looked that I didn’t notice anything else.

Then I started crying.

Here was this 3^rd grade student whose dad is paralyzed, whose mom had cancer (and may have it again—I haven’t seen her in the car rider line this year), who has a major stuttering problem,

As happy as he could be.

 

Evidently, he and his dad go lots of places together.

I asked him about it the next day.

That day, they had gone to the barber shop.

For whatever reason, his family doesn’t have a vehicle that his dad can drive,

So they go on the motorized wheelchair.

Is this unsafe? Yes.

Does it lack a sense of traditional able-bodied dignity? Yes.

But does my student realize either of these things? No.

He is just proud to be with his father.

And I find the whole thing so beautifully heartbreaking.

 

Like me, you may be quick to pass judgment.

But friends: we rarely know the depth of a situation until we take the time to truly see it.

 

That day, and again today,

I am reminded that I only see the surface of most of my students’ lives.

I have no idea what they experience at home—

The trauma and heartache that so many live through—

The unbearable situations that so many bear—

The abnormal conditions that so many call normal—

The poverty that so many endure.

 

That day, and again today,

I am reminded that I have no room or right to pass judgment on the things I see and don’t understand.

Most people are doing the best they can to survive,

And unless they are using their power and position to try to hurt other people,

I have no right to judge or to force my personal beliefs and values into their lives.

 

Oh God: Keep my student safe as he and his dad adventure together on a motorized wheelchair. Grant them many wonderful, life-giving moments together, and help me to be a teacher who grants him, and all my students, life-giving moments at school. Help me to stop passing judgment and to instead pass love, joy, peace to all, and figurative fists to the oppressors who try to hold to power and put others down. Help me to stand for policies and values that fight for equity and equality for all—even those in motorized wheelchairs. Especially those in motorized wheelchairs. Amen.