Handicap

My friend Marie J. R. posted a poem entitled 'Handicaps' last week.  Please feel free to visit her poem:  http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977139553.  As I prepared to write a comment on her poem I realized I had an entire article that I needed to write and not just a comment.  I have been truly blessed throughout life in that not only have I not had a significant handicap, other folks, close to me, could all make the same claim.  Oh yeah, sure, growing up I viewed the occasional handicap now and then; the man entering the library in a wheel chair, the blind person navigating with his red-tipped cane or trusted service dog, the occasional amputee and the soul stricken with muscular dystrophy.  But they were always from a distant and quite frankly I paid them very little mind.  All of that changed when Jim Kibby of Knightdale, North Carolina became my best friend in 2003 and this article is about the two revelations that 'Jimbo' brought into my world, into my perspective.

Following the summer of 2003, I relocated to the Raleigh, NC area to help manage the building of the US64 Bypass.  At the time, my license was in a state of suspension and either I relied on the benevolence of others to cart me around or I pretty much stayed home.  One Saturday there was a knock on my door.  I was cleaning house in my usual way.  My usual way meant wearing nothing but boxer shorts and playing classic rock neighborly enough for the folks two streets up to hear it.  To my surprise, the knockee, turned out to be a lady from the local Baptist church (a very good-looking lady) and not a salesperson wanting to sell his or her's 'new neighbor' something.  What this lady was 'selling' as I stood there without shame in just my boxer shorts, was an invitation to visit Faith Baptist Church the following day.  After I turned Bob Seger down a few notches, actually more like 20 notches, I explained that I was new in town, didn't have a license and had yet to meet any Christian friends.  The lady, Kim, who's reaction to my music and near-nakedness was, to her credit, non-plussed then assured me that she and her husband (husband? you could almost hear the groan) would pick me up for church the following day and every Sunday thereafter until I was once again driving on my own.

That is how I began being a regular attendee at Faith Baptist Church in Knightdale, NC.  On the very first Sunday, Kim introduced me to one of their dear friends, Jim Kibby.  Jim was sitting there in the back with his wheelcahir pressed up against the wall in a very conscious effort to not be in the way.  I smiled and half-heartedly shook his hand and quickly hurried off to a seat of my own.  Never really being around a handicap person, I was, at the age of 40, still unsure how to act around them.  For the next couple of weeks I would notice Jim as Kim would always be sure to stop by him and wish him well, but I never approached him again.

It was probably thew first weekend in October and I was out riding my mountain bike with my retriever Streaker keeping up to the side of me.  Streaker and I stopped at a yard sale for not much more reason than the hostess offered to get Streaker a bowl of water.  After a couple of minutes conversation I prepared to leave when I heard my name called out.  I turned around to see Jim sitting there in his wheelchair all smiles and happy.  He had just purchased a complete set of encyclopedia for $5 and was beaming ear to ear with his conquest.  He thanked me for continuing to come to church and how the church was blessed with my presence.  This, from a man I had gone out of my way to ignore.  He said that his apartment was just around the corner and if I helped him loading the books into his trunk, he would be more than happy treating Streaker and I to some lunch.  In hindsight, I would probably have to confess that I ended up helping him out of a feeling of obligation more than a willingness to pursue friendship.

It was a lunch of homemade pizza and curly fries and it lasted the entire afternoon.  I discovered that Jim was a very intelligent individual, a student of mythology, a maker of his own tools (he has a lathe in his kitchen folks), a seasoned 'Jepoardy' viewer - answering faster than the contestants, a life-long Christian and an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  He had also taken in his mentally challenged nephew Brad, in his own right a devoted Carolina Panther fan.  By the time Streaker and I left his little humble abode, I knew that we both had a new friend in our lives.  Over the next few months that friendship turned into Jim and I becoming best friends.

I spent Sunday afternoons and Monday nights watching football at Jim's house where he let me cheer on my Patriots and I begrudgingly put up with his rants for the Steelers.  On Saturdays I would often go with him to Tractor Supply, Harbor Freight or the bevy of flea markets and thrift stores located on Raleigh's west side.  Jim would always be on the lookout for uniques tools or cooking gadgets.  One time he found a raviloi maker and we spent the day making little ravioli stuffed with cheese, fish, beef, mushrooms - whatever ingredient we could think of.  It was great fun.  It was during all these little excursion that my first revelation occured.  People in general treat handicap people with a savage indifference.  They avoid eye contact and go to great lengths to not being engaged by them in conversation.  And a lot of times, people won't ever adhere to what';s proper let alone legal.  More times than not, Jim and I have circled parking lots waiting for some healthy but in-a-hurry-or-too-lazy-to-walk-far schmuck who would be discourteously parked in a handicap spot.  This happened on so many occasions that it started to get to me and I would be the one visibly angered.  For the first time in my life I became aware of how handicap people and the laws made for their benefits were being constantly ignored and ostracized.  Jim, for his part, never ceases to smile and to never stop wearing his Christianity on his sleeve.  I guess to summarize my first revelation would be to admit a realization that we, the healthy world, often overlook the plight of handicap individuals.  Every time Jim gets in and out of his vehicle is a major undertaking.  You and I jump in and out of our vehicles so quickly and so often you'd think our pants were on fire.

During the course of our fisrt year of friendship I was witness to so many things that Jim did that my second revelation about handicaps was indeed an inevitable foregone conclusion.  I watched Jim host dinner parties where he cooked, fed and cleaned up after a dozen people, I watched him volunteer to help with a church breakfast only to find himself (and me, who's not much help) the only one showing up to do the cooking, I watched him tutor children and support his nephew with more love than any professional teacher I ever encountered and I watched as he lowered himself out of his wheelchair and remove a muffler that was giving me fits.  Folks, I did protest this last action, but Jim would have none of my protest.  Within twenty minutes, Jim and his big burly arms had my rusted old muffler laying on the ground.  About the only things I never witnessed Jim doing was griping, moaning, complaining or crying.  He's above all that.  His love for the Lord has placed him above all that.  He was a Christian before the accident twenty years ago which broke his back, He was a Christian all through his recovery and adaptation to life in 'the chair', He was a Christian when I met him and he remains a Christian today.  And the Lord has rewared him with knowledge, wisdom and upper body strength that superceeds the abilities of an average person.  And that is the root of my second revelation.  I got to know Jim long enough and well enough that I began to view him as a whole person.  Sometimes, I'll get out of Jim's car and start walking towards our destination without waiting for him or I'll sit idly watching a football game and letting him make us nachos or other snacks without offering my assistance.  But now moments such as these are not from my ignoring him; they are moments when I honestly forget all about his handicap.  Jim, in his graces, accepts these moments as a compliment.  Second revelation:  handicaps like to be viewed as whole people.  Most will accept your help in holding doors open, etc and they cherish your respect when you leave the handicap parking spaces for them; but undoubtedly they are physically moved when you become enough of a friend that you sometimes forget that they have a handicap.

There's much that I am indebted to my friend Jim for but the greatest gift he has given me has been a new perspective and an enlightenment on how I view the world around me.  God bless you Jim.  I love you man.

- Robert C. Burnham, October 2007

and thank you Marie for prompted me with your poem to write a story that needed telling..........