You don't have to want death in order to prepare for it.

physical disability looms pretty large in one's life. But it doesn't devour one wholly. I'm not, for instance, Ms. MS, a walking, talking embodiment of a chronic incurable degenerative disease.

One of the blessings that comes with parental territory is that children tug you into experiences you're pretty sure you'd never otherwise contemplate.

If only we could have them back as babies today, now that we have some idea what to do with them.

In a society that prates about, but seldom practices, communication, the craving to be listened to, heard, understood - which originates with the first terrified wail, the circling arms, the breast, the consolatory murmur - is hard to assuage.

That's the trouble with honorable mentions: they let everyone know you applied and didn't win.

I felt permanently exiled from 'normality.' Whether imposed by self or society, this outsider status - and not the disability itself - constitutes the most daunting barrier for most people with physical impairments, because it, even more than flights of steps or elevators without braille, prevents them from participating fully in the ordinary world, where most of life's satisfactions dwell.