Looking for God
by Sissy Freeborn

Earlier this year I had to face a simple fact. My MS had gotten worse, and I was unable to walk more than a dozen feet and suffered severe balance problems. So I was given a wheelchair. The whole idea revolted me. I was a runner! I ran a mile every day. But that was before MS wasn't it? My whole life is now carefully separated into before and after MS. Still a curious thing has happened. I have learned so much more about people sitting here. An insight and perspective I never knew existed...a commonality of sorts, but not of pain or despair but of courage and strength of the human spirit. It seems the people I meet this way are already friends. We have been down the same road my friends and I. It matters little why our legs do not work. It seems I meet more people that I truly like of late. It is sort of strange, but we have our own reality. We are lined up in rows in the hospital, when waiting for tests and other services. The "norm's", those who can do everything and do not have a crippling disease, as coined by Mary, a 10 year old MD patient I know, ignore us. We become lost in our wheelchairs. So, we have only ourselves to talk to, as the "norm's" buzz around us seeing but not seeing. Still, as I said, we became friends quickly. It is that way almost everywhere I have gone. We are ignored by the "norm's". Sometimes it seems like even God has ignored us as I pray for a cure to my MS. This holiday, I wheeled myself into a Sony theater and picked a space to wait next to the "regular" seats, while Frank, my husband, gets the tickets. There is a woman my age sitting there. I smile and say "hello". She looks nervous, as she smiles back and leaves. Soon I observe an open space of seats around me? Perhaps it is my perfume that they object to. So there I am, all alone in the crowd, when a woman bursts into the lobby.. She eyes the lobby in a cool military fashion. "There", she points, "by her!" as she points to me. She is followed by motorized attack force of perhaps ten wheelchairs. They stream past her to converge on me. "Stay with her" the woman commands. All that is missing is a whistle. They come to me like lost children to a friend. We are old friends, though I have never seen them before. One asks me to help her with her bag, as she has no control of her left arm. I help as best I can. My hands are shaky because of my MS. It does not matter! She gives me her pixie smile, as I adjust her bag. We now have a open space, equivalent to a nuclear blast, around us. They accept me, as if I had been with them all their lives. We talk. The pixie has a name...she is called Annie. She uses a wheelchair like a extension of her self. She says she likes my chair. I do not know how to answer her. I hate my chair. As I sit there groping for something to say, another girl wheels up, all smiles. She says her name is Stephanie. She is about 17. She tells me she has MD and the kids are part of a group home. She tells me the little pixie has CP, and Billy, a small crumpled body in a big wheel chair has something fibrosis. His frail body contrasts the fierce light in his eyes. The others have MD or CP. The girl, Stephanie, looks at me and waits. It is my turn I know. "I have......" I stumble but she is patient "........Multiple Sclerosis". "What is Multiple Sclerosis?" the pixie asks. I try to explain. "Please," asks Stephanie, "would you talk to us at the home?" At that very moment, I want to talk to them in the worst way of my whole life. Though I cannot explain why, I eagerly accept the invitation. I pull out my battered pad to write down the address. Embarrassed I start to explain what MS does to memory, but then I realize there is no need to do so. A woman my age comes in talking with her friend and not looking at what is in front of her and almost disembowels herself on my chair. She looks at me "Do you have to put that here?" she painfully demands, as if the only acceptable place would be outside of the building. The manager whimpers in his office, wondering if it would be politically correct to ask us to leave or just hide for a few hours. The injured woman looks at the kids and myself. She mutters something unintelligible but the word "disgusting" comes out clear. It is a sharp knife and hurts as it cuts me. I feel a tear stream down my cheek, as a small hand reaches out for mine. It is the pixie's. She has a tear on her face as well. As I look, I see the pain in Stephanie's face also. We fall into silence, but Annie keeps hold of my hand. The hurt goes away. A lifetime passes between us, and then the woman comes back with tickets. "Thank for looking after my girls," she chirps. "No," I say. "You are quite wrong; they have looked after me." She looks puzzled. But then she is only a "norm". Frank is back with tickets and a drink. I am alone again. As we go into the movie, I think, "So many of us look for God. Yet, today I think God held my hand.