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It's been just over three decades since my mother broke her neck in a head-on collision with a drunk taxi driver near Sun City. It left her a quadriplegic.
She'd spent the night prior to us finding her in a hospital corridor on a stretcher with nothing but a soft collar waiting to be transported (by ambulance, not helicopter) from Rustenberg to then HF Verwoerd Hospital in Pretoria where there was a ward for 'nie-blankes'.
In the meantime she was denied treatment because she wasn't white.
Every time I remember this fact, my heart breaks at the evil that was apartheid.
After traversing Sun City in search of her, my four-year-old self nauseated with worry and throwing up in the car, we eventually found my mother in ICU in traction; a steel rod running through her skull. I remember recoiling - distressed and confused as my grandmother brought me in to see her.
In an instant my life had irrevocably changed. I'd never again know what it felt like to be scooped up in my mother's embrace. I would learn by the age of 10 to cook and run a household and things such as spontaneous outings with my friends became an anomaly as I, along with my cousin, would often have to stand in when my mother's assistant didn't pitch. And it could be weeks before we had someone reliable again.
But the life most affected was my mom's.
I didn't need to still contend with the structural and attitudinal barriers that became par for the course for her going forward. I would be able to get myself out of bed, washed and dressed and off to work without relying on someone to help me do so.
I could get a job without first being discriminated against because I was disabled on top of being a woman and a coloured woman at that. Once I had my job, I could do it without needing to be reasonably accommodated and risking the irritation of my boss who felt it too onerous and expensive a task to invest in software to help me type because I only have the partial use of one hand.
And I could still go to the loo alone and enjoy my privacy.
I didn't need to worry about parking bays, often stolen by the inconsiderates among us because they weren't ‘planning on being long’. With no comprehension that the wheelchair parking spot is designed to be wider so that a wheelchair can fit comfortably next to the car.
I would never be an afterthought when invited to functions where no attention is paid to access. She'd arrive and after being faced with five steps leading to the entrance, she'd be told to access the building from the back. Past the bins. Using the lift assigned for stock and garbage.
And then there is the terminology. "She's wheelchair-bound." She'd say she's more 'bound' without the wheelchair. Or 'differently-abled' (which is preferable for some disabled people but not so much for others).
Read more: The unspoken truth of being quadriplegic
I don't always treat my mother's disability with sensitivity, though. I too can be one of the 'inconsiderates'. I'm partial to cobbled streets for example.
My mother prefers malls with tiles and finds cobblestones insufferable. I sometimes find her insufferable because of this until I remember that cobblestones, while aesthetically pleasing, aren't practical.
They're simply not made with the small front wheels of a wheelchair in mind. Should those wheels get jammed in between them, she'll go flying out the chair. Never mind that being pushed over these stones is uncomfortable because wheelchairs don't come complete with adequate shock absorbers.
Despite this awareness, there are days still where I'd like to be care-free and meet a friend for breakfast or do the early yoga class but can't because today my mother's assistant didn't come again and so I would need to hold the fort.
In those moments I am crushed under the weight of self-pity.
Then I witness with what difficulty she types her thesis with one hand. Or how she has to sit for hours in the same position, only able to shift the weight off her thighs if someone helps lift her. I realise what a wretch and ingrate I'm being and quickly rethink my petulant self-pity.
And it occurs to me that I may not make breakfast at nine with so-and-so but that I can at least type an email in a fraction of the time - with both hands. And that I can get up any time I'm feeling uncomfortable.
My discontent seems so insignificant then.
