Disabilities.
It’s a word that means different things to different people. Some disabilities are seen, and some are unseen. Some are mental and some are physical. Even terrible scars can be a disability.
I first noticed disabilities when I read a romance many years ago and the male character had something wrong with his hand. I don’t really remember the female character, the setting or even the story line, but I vividly remember the male character. The author wrote the character in such a way that left an indelible impression. I read that book at least three times. I never read a romance twice back then because I remembered every little detail of every story. Today, not so much.
That long-ago, well-written character wasn’t the reason I sometimes have characters with disabilities in my books.
My husband was and still is my inspiration for writing these types of characters.
We met in a chat room in the late nineties and talked online for months before we spoke on the phone. His disability came as a surprise when I first met him. In all that time, he’d never mentioned it.
I thought perhaps he’d had a stroke at some point because he couldn’t use his left hand all that well. The characteristics were there, and it looked like he might have had something wrong with his left foot as well.
But here’s the thing… His heart and brain were (and still are) so much bigger than his disability. It was his heart I fell in love with. I didn’t see what he had as a disability, but as a condition he’d learned to live with, just like I have an issue with my neck. People don’t comment on it, but I’m conscious of it and my husband said he noticed it, but it hadn’t bothered him, so why should it bother me.
To this day (and we’ve been married going on twenty-one years), he will not capitalize on his disability. In fact, he does things himself even if it takes extra time and all his concentration. (We all probably take for granted the everyday things we do when we have two capable hands.) He’s an IT professional and types with one hand. He even served in the military. His disability didn’t stop him from living his life to the fullest, but it defined his out-of-the-box thinking in any life situation including his job.
My husband was a blue baby. From his baby pictures, you could see the telltale sign that his left hand had problems. At age seven, he was told he had a brain aneurysm and that it could lead to death. When he specifically asked his doctor how long he had, the doctor said he could die at age eight or he could die at eighty. His response was “I choose eighty.”
That conversation led him to do terrifying and crazy stunts that most rational people wouldn’t do. Even he says he’s surprised he lived through them.
About ten yers ago, medical advances showed that what the doctors at that time thought was an aneurysm was actually brain damage from birth.
He now wears a brace on his left leg (much like the ones on the left) and his hand is virtually useless, but he perseveres and will not use a wheelchair. He is determined and will fight for the right to be self-sufficient.
When we were first married, I overcompensated and tried to help him all the time. He’d get angry with me. I still offer to help, but not as often as back then. When he wants help, he asks for it, but it’s rare.
When we go to his favorite fast-food place, he tells me to get a table and he’ll bring the food. I cringe when I look around because I know there are folks who are probably thinking, why isn’t she helping him? What they don’t realize is that my husband wants to do things for himself and be a useful member of society. He doesn’t want to be in a wheelchair, nor does he want to be pitied. Most people with disabilities feel the same way he does.
He’s my greatest cheerleader and while none of my characters have his specific disability, they have other disabilities like intense fear, terrible facial scars, PTSD, and hearing loss.
I will continue to write romances with a variety of characteristics and hope people will be blessed by the stories I tell.