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| Hoosier United Methodist News |
July 2001 |
My witness:
The power of poetry
By AnnaMarie Fernihough
I chair the Awareness for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities Committee and I have Multiple Sclerosis.
Now, before anybody decides to get me psychiatric help, understand: the following poem was written exactly as it happened. I was at school, feeling terrible, no way to go home, and I had an assignment due for a poetry class. This is what came out of it. I got an "A" for the poem, and the quiet admiration of my classmates.
I tell you this for a number of reasons. First, disabled people are just like everybody else: we have good and bad days, and we get as infuriated as everybody else but it doesn't always make us suicidal. It proves that we're human.
Second, we're not saints, we're people who don't like to let circumstances keep us from living our lives.
And third, God has given us gifts and talents that he expects us to use and to share with the rest of the world. He holds us accountable, just as he does healthy people.
The next time a disabled person comes into your church, whatever their disability, look beyond the obvious. Ask them the questions you have about their handicaps and then find out what they have to offer your church. You may be pleasantly surprised. He or she may not just be a Committee chairperson or a clergy spouse or whatever else, but a writer and singer, like me.
An M.S. Bad Day
It wouldn't take much
To lay down and die.
It wouldn't take much
To just say goodbye.
Some days are unreal
In the depths of fatigue
While others just "are"
In the doings of me.
I hate this disease
I hate what it does
I hate how it feels
I want what I was!
I "handle it well,"
That's what people say
Because they don't see me
On days like today.
No, it wouldn't take much
To lay down and die.
It would truly be easy
To just say goodbye.
Annamarie Fernihough is wife of the Rev. Mark Fernihough of Trinity UMC, Oakland City.
Last updated on 01/14/2004