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I have been using a wheelchair for a few years now, so you would think I would be used to the way people sometimes react to it.
For the most part, I am.
I understand being physically overlooked. Sitting in a wheelchair means I am literally at a different level from most people around me. In a busy shop, restaurant or reception area, it is easy for someone to step in front of me. I have learned not to take that personally. Usually, a slightly enthusiastic wave or an appropriately timed “excuse me” solves the problem.
There is one thing, though, that still catches me out.
Every so often, somebody will completely ignore me and speak to my wife, Rachel, instead. Not about something unrelated.
About me.
They will look at Rachel and ask what I would like, whether I need something, where I want to go, or what would be most suitable for me. All while I am sitting beside her, perfectly capable of answering the question myself. It is difficult to describe quite how strange that feels.
Rachel finds it just as awkward. Sometimes she deliberately turns towards me so that the question has nowhere else to go. Occasionally, she simply says, “You can ask him.”
None of this is usually malicious. I do not think the people involved are deliberately trying to be rude or dismissive. They have simply seen one thing about me and unconsciously allowed it to tell them several other things.
They have seen the wheelchair; that part is true. What they have misunderstood is what the wheelchair means, and I sometimes wonder whether many of the misunderstandings we experience in life begin in exactly the same way.
Someone sees something real about us, but then assumes it tells them the whole story.
