Sometimes, partly, in research settings. Of the four participants in the Louisville study, two managed over-ground walking with the stimulator switched on after daily training. It is not a cure and it is not something you can book at a local clinic.
Did I forgive him?
No. Not the way people mean it when they use that word. I let him drive me, and one afternoon in a car park I put my hand on his arm. That is as far as I have got.
What happened to the money he saved?
Thirty-one thousand dollars is still in the account in my son’s name, after the trial deposit came out of it.
How can I help a parent who uses a wheelchair?
Practical things beat kind words. Driving. A ramp that is actually safe. Food that can be made the night before. And asking what they want instead of deciding it for them.
Why do people search for the son carries mom at graduation story?
Graduation season puts a camera in every auditorium and the image reads instantly: a child handing back what was given to him. The ones that travel furthest usually have something behind them that the photograph does not show, the way ours did.
Final Thoughts
Rick and I are not married again. I do not know whether we ever will be. But he still picks me up at seven every morning, and he still waits in the car park.
On Sunday nights, when Tyler rings from school, we put him on speakerphone at my kitchen table and the three of us talk until he has to go and study.
Sometimes when I hang up I take a few steps across to the window. Just a few. To look out at the ramp my son built when he was fourteen.
The picture everybody takes away from this is the obvious one. A son carries mom at graduation, up a flight of auditorium stairs, in front of six hundred silent people. The part I keep is quieter than that. He spent two years learning how to lift a body safely, from a man who had failed at nearly everything except that one thing.
Sometimes the people who carry you are not the ones you expect. And sometimes, if you let them, the ones who walked away find their way back, one step at a time.
If stories like this one are what you come here for, there are more in our Stories category.
Who carried you when you needed it? Tell us in the comments.
