What I give up to fly as a disabled person
I AM THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF A MAN WHO PAID his way through college working 50 hours a week, replacing sleep with sheer grit. He’s tough and intentional with a strong sense of personal responsibility. Our conversations on anything from health care reform to paid maternity leave rarely get far. “It would be wonderful if we could solve everyone’s problems, but life is hard,” he often says. “And hard doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
His words——came back to me as my partner Micah and I prepared for our first plane ride with our toddler Otto. Because commercial airplanes and their bathrooms don’t accommodate wheelchairs, I generally prefer driving a longer distance to avoid even a short flight. But we couldn’t afford to take off work for a 22-hour road trip, so our only
