ginger

by Allegra

Not sure if we wrote about this here before.  Probably not.  But someone on a forum wrote about having a little with a disability, so we were inspired.

We have an 18-month-old in our system, ginger, who is named after our mother's beloved dog, a male collie.  She had him from her teens until her late twenties.  We remember him as old and incontinent, and we remember when she had our father take him to be put down, because she couldn't bear to do it herself. Our father used to refer to the dog as "Uncle Ginger" because he was a better brother to our mother than our uncle was.

Our inside ginger originally presented as wearing leg braces and being unable to stand up. When the body was that age, we spent several months having to wear a pair of shoes that connected to each other with a bar. This was supposedly to correct problems with at least one of our feet not positioning itself correctly when we walked.

It's not surprising that having to wear this device was instrumental in bringing about one or more members of our system. The irony is that the problem with our right foot was never corrected. It still often lands incorrectly if we don't pay attention and step deliberately. And it developed a bunion that often causes our right foot to hurt if we wear any shoes other than slippers or sturdy running shoes.

As for ginger, we got her a walker on the inside. Not the kind of baby-bouncing device on wheels that outside babies use--but a real walker, scaled for her use. She's very happy about having it.