Tag Archives: disability

The Hana Chronicles: Month 8, Day 1

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

August 22, 2026- Hana was in a dress, for most of the day. This was to mark the passing of eight months, since she arrived, very quietly, in our midst. It didn’t stop her from practicing her standing or from dancing around with her father. When we finally went out for dinner, she had eaten hers and made a proper mess of her garb. She wore a more comfortable onesie. when we went to H-Mart’s Food Court.

This past month has seen her master sitting up, begin standing, with assistance or by pulling herself up, and making her own preferences known. Hana does not like wearing hats, at least not when she is in a stroller. She is okay with being put down for a nap, but not so much for being put in the play pen and just left. She wants to engage us in activities, which include having one of us lie down and letting her crawl all over us. After several minutes of interaction, she is ready to play on her own. She will eat anything put on her plate, but when she is full, the mouth stays closed and nothing will change her mind. Hana is often quiet around strangers, yet lately, she has started to say “Hi”, to people who seem friendly.

HANA’S NOTE- I had a bunch of photos taken this evening, mostly of the same pose. It seems my Mom likes to take a lot of the same pictures. I just want them to be done.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-2005 I began this year with a five month assignment at Dysart Unified School District, as a preschool aide. It was more fun than I had anticipated and I bonded well with “the littles”. A couple of the children latched onto me, almost as a surrogate grandparent. That was okay.

We stuck close to home, during the summer, spending a week or two in Prescott, with Penny’s parents. They moved from the house in Kingswood to a more accessible house in a development called Willow Creek Gardens.

In the Fall, I took a substitute assignment at a high school on the far west end of Dysart, teaching World History. The classes were 2/3 serious students, 1/3 unruly. The department staff were helpful, the principal was officious and the assistant principal made everything a game of “Gotcha”. The serious students, and I, were just as glad when the regular teacher returned.

That Thanksgiving, we began several years of Thanksgiving Dinner at the home of either of two brothers, Irving and Nathan Robbins, friends of my in-laws. They alternated, and Penny’s mother brought a pie or sweet potato casserole to contribute. Christmas was spent at the Grand Canyon Baha’i Conference, at the Marriott Resort, near Desert Ridge, in north Phoenix. several hundred people attended, usually dressed in their finest. Penny began to use a wheelchair, around the time of the holidays. I had to carefully monitor her, as she tried to get up and walk, but her legs weren’t cooperating. A nurse who worked part-time at the YMCA showed me how to correctly lift Penny, by locking knees and then lifting with my legs. That made a hard situation a tad easier.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 31

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

August 21, 2026- This was one of the quieter days. Hana slept for an hour in mid-morning and for two hours in the afternoon. These naps don’t interfere with her night’s sleep, so I think this is more evidence of a growth spurt.

When she wasn’t napping, we took our stroller walk, made more enjoyable by the cloud cover,which later burned off. (This is still the dry season.) She also did plenty of standing and took a couple of scooting steps, each time, along the bars of the playpen. This evening, we all came to consensus about Hana’s meals. When she is full, she keeps her mouth closed and will not take any more bites. That is okay with her grownups.

HANA’S NOTE- I am so glad everyone understands me. It is hard not to have words all the time, but I’m getting there.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-2004- Penny went from cane to walker, in the Fall of 2003. She toughed this year out, saying she had no intention of going into a wheelchair. She would also not cut herself any slack. When there was a Baha’i devotional on the second floor of an apartment building, she insisted on going up, one step at a time, on her own.

I worked through the second semester at Palo Verde Middle School, with a modicum of support from the administration. I was not holding things together, though, and resigned at the end of the year,rather than drag everyone through the gathering mess. It was actually a relief, and the Fall found me substitute teaching at Glendale Union High School District-and doing well. As it happened, the three individuals who worked to keep me off balance, in the previous school district, didn’t change their ways and were arrested for a couple of other transgressions, the following school year. I was not surprised.

Life has a way of balancing things out, even when it looks darkest.

A Tale from 2007

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 5, 2022- It has now been eleven years, since Penny winged her flight to be with our Lord. As her passage took place on a Saturday, this day was especially poignant. Having been in Phoenix, and the cemetery, on Thursday took some of the edge off of this day’s ambiance. I also followed my Saturday morning routine, and having a Baha’i Zoom devotional, that was itself based in Phoenix, as part of that routine was also a plus.

Ten of our twenty-nine years together were spent in Phoenix. Although the community is large and the people are quite busy with their daily lives, Penny made a positive impression on a lot of people. Her joie de vivre was irrepressible, almost to the end. She did not use her disability as an excuse to refrain from living her faith. Fifteen years ago, in the midst of her decline in mobility, and just after she had to be wheelchair bound, we were invited to attend a prayer meeting that was on the second floor of an apartment complex, and there was no elevator.

She asked me to help her to the stairs, and proceeded to carefully climb the stairs, on her hands and knees, reversing the process by coming down each step on her buttocks when the meeting was over. I brought the empty wheelchair up and down, standing behind, then in front of her, as was prudent. The device was her chair while we were in the apartment.

There went a genuine hero.

The A-Team

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Posted by on in Education, Personal Values, Striving

May 17, 2017, Prescott-

In my twelve years of public education, 1956-1968, there were mostly competent educators, a few misfits and twelve stand-up, top flight professionals, who either were my teachers of record or served as mentors beyond the immediate classroom.

One, Miss Bernis Hanlon, passed on, over the weekend.  She was my fifth grade teacher, and one of two at the Felton School, Saugus, MA, who went above and beyond, when it came to building character.  It was largely Miss Hanlon’s influence that brought me out of my shell, had me at least approach a modicum of competence in a few sports and join the Boy Scouts.  She taught us that boys and girls, working together, accomplish three times as much, as the genders working separately.  She taught me that having a  then little-known disability (mild autism) was never an excuse for not doing one’s level best.  She built on the framework which my third grade teacher, the then Miss Joanne Nugent, had started.

Fast forward, to 1966-67, my Junior Year at Saugus High School.  I had survived junior high school, the awkwardness, the quirky behaviour, which had generated taunts from otherwise good people, and the fires of our eighth grade year.   Only the stalwart protection of Mr. Paul O’Brien, who died earlier this year, and Mr. Ron Ahern,  and the character education of the late Miss Gladys Fox,kept me on an even keel.  I had endured inept teachers, in three of my freshman classes.   I had mastered grammar and punctuation, with the guidance of Miss Miriam Kochakian, as a Sophomore. It was the junior year that brought Mr. John Quinlan and understanding of Algebra,  Mr. Bernard Hussey and a stellar United States History class, Mrs. Lillian Pittard Bisbee, and love of prose, and the renewed mentorship of Miss Hanlon, by then a colleague of Mrs. Bisbee and a full-on enthusiast of poetry and drama.   The two ladies set the stage for Mrs. Katherine Vande and the best creative writing instruction I have ever had (Senior English).

Miss Hanlon was an integral part of that A-Team of mine, and I can’t imagine how my life would have played out, without her presence.  I know she is smiling down on all of us whom she loved, with that reassuring, infectious Irish grin.

Octane

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Posted by on in Personal Values, Poetry, Striving

October 3, 2016, Prescott-

The once powerful octogenarian,

having survived and beaten cancer,

shuffles and gingerly steps his way

across the floor.

He will be around, for his family

and others who revere him,

for quite some time yet.

Another elder,

in a place far from here,

left this earthly plane,

this morning,

after an extended time

of palliative care.

He leaves a legacy

of civic pride and

overcoming disability,

in his midlife.

My blessed son,

in late youth,

is facing,

and overcoming,

an injury that

has him somewhat

laid up.

He is setting up a

a network,

that will see him

through these six weeks

of sedentariness.

Each of us survives

until its time

for a different setting.