Last week, our group -Toms, Pancho and me- made an interview with Maura. She has disabilities and is on wheelchair. She has an assistant who helps her move. She does not have much articulation in her body so without her assistant she would not be able to move at all.
Why I said she is strong? She works in UILDM for 15 years and what she does is to work with people. She coordinates activities of Independent Living including self help groups and peer support groups. She says that the job can be hard and she can live manu sad and unhappy emotions but in the interview when we asked “how she can work with these sad emotions”, she said that she just loves her work. Maura admitted that the biggest obstacle in her life was when her mother died. That was a hard and depressive period in her life. But Maura survived it and continued to smile and work. Actually, this interview made us tear up when we talked about mobility. For Maura mobility is to travel and to walk somewhere, to learn and see something new. When we ask “what limits her mobility”, in the beginning she said that it’s the city. Maura says that when she wants to travel somewhere and then see the stairs, that is the limit for her Because, like I said, she is on wheelchair. But the strongest point is that she can find ways to avoid these limits, so basically she doesn’t have any limits.
In world so many people cry about things that they don’t have, like a car, love, money, or something else. But I have this amazing chance to meet so strong woman, who sitting on wheelchair said, to her doesn’t have limits to travel and most important – to learn something new. Maura is a woman from whom we all need to learn positivism, ease of life and just to be ourselves. As well, Maura invites us to use our brains, and enjoy each life moment.
Ilva