I was half-asleep yesterday afternoon when a notification popped up on my phone. I swiped it away, only absorbing which app it was referring to, and promised myself I’d look later. It couldn’t be that important. Right?
Author Archives: Rhianna McGregor Hajzer
A GIFT FROM MY DISABILITY — THE SIXTH LOVE LANGUAGE
Christmas is now less than two weeks away, and I’m as excited as anyone. But as the chaos of the holiday descends, I’m struck by the odd sense that we are doing it wrong.
WHEN CHRISTMAS WAS SIGHTED — SIX HOLIDAY MEMORIES FROM THE TIME BEFORE I WAS BLIND
As Christmas approaches and the world descends into a frenzy of holiday activity, I take a walk down memory lane, and reflect on the six Christmasses with my family before I became blind.
THERE IS NO MEANING IN DISABILITY PRIDE WITHOUT GOD
My first braille Bible came a few volumes at a time. In the first box was the Gospel of Matthew and Acts of the Apostles. As they came box by box, my Bible filled up my bookshelf and at seven years old, I could read the Word of God for myself for the first time.
ARE YOU ABLEIST? LET’S FIND OUT
Ableism in its simplest form, is discrimination toward disabled people. But it encompasses so much more than what you might assume.
YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO DISABLED PEOPLE’S MEDICAL INFORMATION
People are curious about what they don’t know. I get it. I’m curious to know what a wooly mammoth feels like, and how people can read my emotions so accurately just by the way I move my face. [How does one raised eyebrow say so much?]
I WAS BULLIED FOR BEING BLIND –A MINI MEMOIR
I’m somewhere between four and six years old–no longer sighted but not quite blind–when I’m bullied for the first time. And though the details are lost to memory, the belittlement and fear has never left my body. And I know it never will.
ASKING “WHAT WOULD YOUR LIFE BE LIKE IF YOU WEREN’T DISABLED” ISN’T BEING CURIOUS, IT’S ABLEIST
It’s always puzzled me, when watching interviews with artists and musicians who’ve made it big in the industry, that almost without fail, the interviewer asks a question along the lines of, “What would you do if you hadn’t pursued music?”