Don’t think of degrees of disability

By Letter to the Editor on February 28, 2018.

March 1 is the Day of Mourning, when vigils are held for people with disabilities who have been murdered by their family and caregivers over the past year.

These are held mostly in the United States and on the internet. Other people are murdered by their families but with people with disabilities it is often seen in the press and by society that the person with the disability was a burden, or there weren’t enough resources to help the family member or caregiver or the person was in too much pain. Of course, this is not true.

This is a day in the disability community when we think of our brothers and sisters who were murdered by those people who they trusted the most. To me, a person with an invisible disability, I think of other people with a disability and I think of us as all being the same. I do not think of degrees of disability, I think of all people as having challenges in their lives. Some people just have to learn to cope with a little more.

Diane MacNaughton

Medicine Hat

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