People Need People

Yesterday my patience and tolerance level was tested once again while I was enroute to meet my son for our weekly therapy session. I had already waited more than a half hour in the cold, for the second bus I needed to complete the trip. It finally arrived, it was packed but fortunate enough to get a seat. Then my phone alerted me to a call. It was my son's school wondering where his pick up was-transportation previously scheduled days and just confirmed hours before I left the confines of my warm apartment. I had learned the company who was contracted cancelled. Yet neither they or the reservation company failed to notify me or the school to say so. Normally, an incident like this would automatically raise my adrenaline but maybe the fact I was cold, on a bus full of strangers or I was just plain tired to fight it I let it go for the moment. Then I got off the bus and waited another half hour in the cold to return back home $5.00 poorer to where my son would be waiting without anyway in the house as he did not have his keys.

As I stood at the icy bus stop, I then made a series of phone calls, asked questions then lodged my complaints against both entities. Now you're wondering what's going to be done about it? Probably not much, but a long time ago, I learned how oppression rears it's ugly head even in one's family. Having a child with a disability, is an already trying experience but if you're (like myself) a woman without a lot of means you're almost forced to enter a world full of bureacracy when seeking services. If I had stayed quiet, (or in another words did not learn the craft of advocacy) I am almost certain life would be much simpler accepting everything at face value. However, I did not because there's a reason why services for people with disabilities, disenfranchised folks and marginalized people exisit because they are needed--and it creates jobs for others. Getting and keeping them sometimes is all about knowhow as well as one's very means of survival. It's people such as myself, and those before me such as today's honorees, Rosa Parks, James Miller Baxter, Jr., Dr. Winona Lipman, The Pullman Porters and countless others who make sure one takes a stand against and does something about these injustices. And as I have been inspired to do, is create programs that fill the void. But first, I need to come up with a plan. Donations of time and resources will be generously accepted.