Snow

The six inches of snow yesterday made me think. I thought about snowball fights, snow forts, snow angels, and snowmen. Winter used to be a time I loved. Now, it’s different. I get anxious for summer to arrive somewhere around my birthday on January 2nd.

This train of thought led me to think about my first winter back in 1983. I wondered what I thought about all the snow that fell the day I was born. I wondered if I thought anything at all that day.

Next, I thought about my first sizable snowfall in a wheelchair. It happened in November of 2000 and I had recently left the hospital and had been living at Courage Center (a rehab center in Golden Valley) for a week or two.

The people I lived at Courage with were completely alien to me. Drug dealers who had been shot, alcoholics who had crashed, brain damaged kids my age, stroke victims, and people with all sorts of problems they’ve had since birth roamed Courage Center’s halls.  When I first arrived I thought they were all a bunch of freaks. I thought I was much better than them.

On the November night of the first snowfall, I was by myself in my room watching Comedy Central. I was quiet and scared, mostly because I wasn’t comfortable with my new body.

“You gotta check this out!” David—a heavyset guy from Duluth who had recently been paralyzed by a gun shot wound—shouted at me.

I reluctantly followed David through the hallways, passed the smoking room, and drove my chair out the rear entrance.

Most of us freaks at Courage center weren’t able to skate, sled, or build forts anymore. Regardless, we still found a way to enjoy the snow. I remember seeing power chairs ripping shitties, power sliding into each other, and spraying fresh snow in each others faces. Most of us had never used our wheelchairs in the snow. It was a blast!

I remember Matt, a guy who had been brain damaged and was unable to talk, had his power chair slide down a hill into a snow bank. He used his DinaVox (a computer that talked what he typed) to call for help.

“Help me, I’m fucking stuck,” Matt’s electronic box that was constantly swearing said to us.

David, who was one of the few people at Courage who had full use of his fingers, tied a transfer belt on Matt’s chair and pulled him to safety—tow truck style. We would later use the same belt to pull people from mud, water, and of course snow.

After that day in the snow, I didn’t see freaks in the hallways anymore. I saw some of the most interesting, diverse, and fun people I will ever encounter.