At least my wheelchair is not stuck in the mud… by Borka

At least my wheelchair is not stuck in the mud… by Borka - October 2013 Scholarship Essay

A few years back, I was going through a pretty difficult time. I had had several surgeries on my left eyelid, and after the surgeries, one of the side effects would be that eyelashes would grow waywardly…actually hitting my eyeball. It was the proverbial needle in the eye. That's what it felt like.

It made sleeping and pretty much blinking my eye unpleasant until I either had the eyelashes tweezed by my opthamologist or had a more intense procedure of having the offending eyelashes removed by electrolysis. Not fun. And the swollen eyelid following the procedure wasn’t a pretty sight… especially for a girl who likes to keep up her appearance. To add insult to injury, the medical bills were piling up.

One balmy September Saturday during one of my lowest points in the midst of this ordeal, I was heading out to take a walk. It had been raining that day, so I had my umbrella in case there was more wet weather.

I wasn't five steps out of my building when I saw a man in a wheelchair. His wheelchair was in a little patch of lawn in front of my building, and he was facing me with an almost quizzical expression. I had seen this man before wheeling around campus in his motorized wheelchair. I wasn’t sure of his affliction, but his head swayed as though he couldn’t hold it up and his feet and hands seemed palsied.

As I saw him facing me, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. He was clearly alone. I saw no one else around. In fact, as I looked to my left and to my right, I didn’t see anyone around. Strange since my building is at one of the busier corners on campus.

For a second, I thought… is there a camera crew from the tv show “What would you do?” lurking nearby poised to jump out of the bushes if I walk by this man? I dismissed the thought as silly almost immediately and walked up to the man and asked if he was ok.

He couldn’t speak, but from the way he was looking at me and swaying his head, I could tell he was saying that he wasn’t ok. As I looked down, I realized that his motorized wheelchair had somehow gone off the sidewalk. I told him I saw the problem and was going to try to get his wheelchair back on the sidewalk.

I put down my umbrella and tried every which way to roll his wheelchair back onto the sidewalk. But there was a little depression between the sidewalk and where the chair was, and I just couldn’t hoist it. I never realized how heavy those wheelchairs are. As I kept trying and still no one was walking by, I started to wonder what I would do.

I had left my phone in my apartment. I thought… if I don’t get this done soon, I’m going back to get it so I can call someone. The skies were darkening. It looked like it would pour again any minute.

No sooner did I have the thought than I saw a man in a restaurant across the street come rushing our way….and then another man from an opposite direction came… and then a city bus pulled over to the side of the street and the bus driver came running out.

The four of us managed to lift the wheelchair back onto the sidewalk. With four of us, it was actually pretty easy. It took a few seconds, and I think we were all a little taken aback by the quickness of the act and not sure what to say or do at that point.

The man in the wheelchair kind of kept looking at me, and I asked him if everything was alright. I could tell by the way he was motioning his head that it wasn’t. So I asked him if he needed something else. When he swayed his head, I could see that he wanted to communicate something more.

He motioned with one of his gnarled hands to a tray in front of him. There were several typed-out phrases there. As we all peered down, he was pointing to “Thank you.”

We all just kind of looked at each other. And in our own way, we told the man you're welcome.
And then we all went our separate ways.

Probably not more than 5 minutes later, the skies opened up. I opened my umbrella to shield myself from the pelting raindrops and proceeded to start my own waterworks…weeping openly. I had had a revelation: you really don’t have any problems until your wheelchair is stuck in the mud and you can’t even ask anyone for help.

This incident reminded me of how my mom will sometimes say that no matter what bad thing is happening to you, there’s always someone who has it worse than you. It also reminded that people are essentially good and want to help other people when they can. It also reminded me about simple gratitude.