September 2015 – PowerchairDiaries

Intersection of Purpose and Hope

By Mark E. Smith

I was recently in Boston, working a consumer trade show for disability-related products, including my company’s power chairs. If you’ve never been to Boston, it’s a stunning city – from the architecture to the cobblestone streets to the harbor – and I found myself in Boston at an amazing spot: the intersection of Purpose and Hope.

No, the intersection of Purpose and Hope isn’t a literal street corner in Boston, but it can be found in any city, and in any of our lives. For me, in Boston, it was found in my meeting a seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy.

He reminded me a lot of… well… me at that age. He was a little guy, squirming all over the place in a manual wheelchair due to spasms and tone, symptoms of cerebral palsy. And, the reason why his family was at the show was because he needs a power chair to keep up with his siblings and peers – read that, to just be a kid.

We had our top-of-the-line power chair there in a pediatric seat size, and as I soon realized, uncannily as if made to fit him exactly. To address his involuntary body movements, I had our reps unbolt lap belts from other units, and we got him seated, strapped in and stable. And, like he’d been in a power chair his whole life – or, more aptly, a NASCAR driver – off he went!

I looked at his parents’ faces, their eyes, knowing how bittersweet these moments can be. On the one hand, a parent wants his or her child to have all of the independence in the world. Yet, no parent wants his or her child to have a lifelong disability. A child going into an advanced mobility device can be a parent’s emotional tug-of-war.

However, his parents understood the liberation he was gaining, and their expressed emotion was joy as he roared around an empty part of the convention hall.

“He’s going to be a little terror,” his mother said with a huge grin. “…From the playground to chasing his brothers on their dirt bikes.”

For me, I was blessed in that moment in living my purpose as one who’s found so much emotional reward in my career of serving others who are on the path I, too, have traveled. And, the family expressed so much hope toward the quality of life a power chair will bring to their son. All of this is the breathtaking beauty of the intersection of Purpose and Hope.

Where’s that intersection in your life right now? Sometimes we bring our purpose to the corner, and sometimes we come needing hope. I’ve been on both sides of the corner. Regardless, when we simply have the initiative and courage to place ourselves at the intersection of Purpose and Hope, all lives involved are elevated.

Buckley, the Serve-ish Dog

By Mark E. Smith

In Tajikistan, a man gets a goat as a dowry. Me, I got Buckley, the Serve-ish Dog.

The way this all started was that years ago, Buckley was to be a serve-ish dog to my now step daughter. However, as it turned out, while she loves cartoon dogs, she’s not keen on real ones. BINGO is a hit; Buckley, not so much. So, Buckley got to live a life of leisure, sleeping, sunbathing, reading tabloid magazines. He was like a Kardashian – he might have had talent, but why bother getting off of your butt when there are pizza scraps to eat.

So, it occurred to my fiancee and me that when she moved from California to Pennsylvania, I had a disability (actually, we already knew that part) and with Buckley being so well trained as a serve-ish dog, it was a marriage made in Heaven – although, technically, I had to marry Holly, not Buckley. Therefore, we bought Buckley a First Class ticket, minus champagne, and flew him out. We’ve been inseparable ever since.

It was really perfect timing. Rosie the English Bulldog passed away months ago, and I was ready for a new dog, missing that companionship. Interestingly, Rosie the English Bulldog was a serve-ish dog, too, only she had it backward – we had to serve her. I don’t want to sound racist, but English bulldogs are like that.

I’ve spent a month now working with Buckley and he’s doing great. It turns out, he has a brilliant Pavlovian mind – that is, he’ll do anything for a bacon treat. If I have a bacon treat on my lap and I say, “Buckley, tie my shoes,” he’ll do it, which is impressive considering that he lacks opposable thumbs.

He has an official service dog vest, and when he wears it, he’s like a cop in uniform, puffing up his posture like he’s of importance. However, I have yet to see him racially profile anyone. Rather, in public, he sticks by my side, follows every command and is a legitimate, behaved service dog. I’ve learned, though, that he’s far smarter than the general public. He’ll lie motionless beside my power chair in a bustling restaurant, wearing his neon-green vest that says SERVICE DOG in giant reflective letters, and giddy people come up and ask, “Oh my goodness, is he a service dog?” I have to stop myself from replying, “No, he’s a Shetland pony in a Halloween costume – want a ride?”

I’ve also learned that there’s no official registration or standard for service dogs, and legally they can go anywhere you go. If questioned, all you have to say is, “He’s my service dog,” and you’re sitting side-by-side on a roller coaster at Disney World (Buckley was such a good sport, wind blowing in his face!). As such, you encounter individuals ranging from those with lifelong visual impairments to wheelchair users to super models with anxiety all using service dogs. And, there’s a huge range of training for service dogs, from two-year schools, to no training at all (hence, super models with anxiety). Buckley lands in-between. If there’s an educational hierarchy for service dogs, his degree is from the University of Phoenix. He’s trained, but not a West Point graduate.

Interestingly, my peers with service dogs are the worst snobs. They’ll come right out and ask me, “Is he a real service dog?”

I now reply, “Buckley, tie my shoes. …Does your mutt do that?”

First Drafts

By Mark E. Smith

When my daughter told me that her first reading assignment in her college freshman English class was Ann Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts,” I was thrilled. Now there’s a professor who knows how to teach!

“Shitty First Drafts” was never a stand-alone essay, but an excerpt from Bird by Bird, Lamott’s 1994 book on writing, aimed at writers living the writing life, and goes back to Hemingway who coined the subject of shitty first drafts. Yet, Lamott, who you might recognize as a very pop-culture and, interestingly, irreverent Christian writer, infused Bird by Bird with life lessons, where I, for one, have always viewed “shitty first drafts” as another one of Lamott’s ultimate metaphors for life.

Lamott’s assertion is that, as writers, the only way we ultimately get to clarity and success is by having the courage to embark on shitty first drafts:

…All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts…. Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow. One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, “It’s not like you don’t have a choice, because you do – you can either type, or kill yourself.” We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.

Chances are, you’re not a writer. But, if your life is like mine, it’s certainly checkered with shitty first drafts. As Lamott puts it, we typically have no idea what we’re doing until we do it. And, I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of hardly any success in my life that didn’t begin as a shitty first draft – from living with my disability to school to career to finances to relationships to working out, and yes, writing. In fact, I have shitty first drafts every day, where based on my disability, two or three tries at any daily living task is the norm. However, I’m always thinking, learning, getting wiser as I do a task, so rather than getting frustrated, I hone in on getting better, improving with each “draft.”

When it comes to our lives, it’s vital to give ourselves permission – and have the courage! – to have shitty first drafts, namely because, as Lamott puts it, they lead to good second drafts and terrific third drafts. Do you know how I learned about finances and relationships, two cornerstones of life? Shitty first drafts! In my 20s, I got into debt up to my ears, by my 30s I paid everything off, and today I haven’t used credit in over a decade, living totally debt free. Relationships have had a similar path, having to learn about love through a lot of painful trial and error, but I think I’m a better partner today than I was 20 years ago. There are so many aspects of life that generally start with shitty first drafts; but, if we’re cognizant, self-aware and dedicated to growth, those shitty first drafts aren’t shitty at all – they’re assured paths to ultimate success.

So, as my 18-year-old daughter moves through her first semester of college, she’s not just reading about shitty first drafts, she’s undoubtedly living them at times, as we all have and do. Yes, it’s hard as a father not to jump in and correct my daughter’s “shitty first drafts,” but I know that by allowing her to learn and grow from them, her second and third drafts – read that, her accomplishments – will be amazing.