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Margaret Cruikshank, formerly a women’s studies lecturer at the University of Maine, lives in a retirement community in Scarborough.
Shortly before my 80th birthday, I was struck down by a stroke affecting my whole left side. Four years of therapy and help from my partner have restored some of my function. Looking back on this period, I find that settings determine the strength and relevance of this unexpected identity as a disabled woman: the small Maine coastal village where I lived at the time of my stroke; a life-care community in southern Maine where we moved in 2022; and a cruise on the Rhine River in 2024.
Since my identity in the first setting where I had lived for 25 years was well established — retired professor, writer of letters to the editor — my new identity could easily be absorbed into the established one. I hardly thought about it as neighbors stopped by my wheelchair to chat, and favorite former students came to see me. Colleagues, too, drove some distance to check up on me. The change in my condition was hardly minimal, but not defining.
Despite extreme fatigue, I felt my mind had not been affected; of course it must have been. I sorely missed short hikes, driving, pickleball, paddling my light-weight canoe and especially driving. As my Ford Focus was hauled away, I was acutely aware of loss. The certainty and solidity of my residence, however, and the constancy of my partner, allowed me to focus on what I could still do. At times I despaired and wanted to give up. Who wants a bleak future, presumably a short one?
Being disabled was not a primary identity in this familiar setting. I felt lucky to be alive, usually cheerful and resigned to my condition, sometimes able to joke about it.
Our move to a life-care institution raised my consciousness. Here, being disabled was normal, although most residents were able-bodied, or temporarily able-bodied. My use of a walker or electric chair reduced a focus on disability. Other identity characteristics took precedence.
What a shock then to board a ship carrying 200 passengers and see no one else with a walker. Since the ship’s elevator did not go to the third floor, the main viewing area, I was constantly reminded of being disabled and sharply separated from other passengers. They had beautiful views of the Rhine; I saw dozens of barges.
I felt pitied by people who tried too hard to help me when I had not requested help. A Southern woman swooped down on me, asking me polite questions about myself, a prelude it turned out to Jesus talk. Never mind, I told myself, this experience will make an excellent story later on. But being highly visible and different? An unpleasant story. Having “disabled” as a core identity? How limiting.
Awareness of being disabled, whether intense or muted, depends of course on the ways others see us in settings besides the three described above. In medical ones, for example. When my doctor saw my left hand dangling uselessly by my side, he said, “Put it in your pocket.” That tip at first felt kindly but later I realized that the doctor had invited me to disguise my infirmity. For whose comfort, his or (presumably) mine? That left hand competently threw baseballs, footballs and snowballs for many years and skimmed flat rocks into lakes and oceans. A sense of continuity in my life makes me value this dangling arm.
I am much more than my disability; now it is only part of my identity, one I have no wish to hide.
