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The most important thing in life is birth. And, especially after our birth, the most important thing is the birth of our children. We have so many hopes for their future. We want our children to become –no more or less- Kings and Queens. We know that in the world that we’re living, competition is very strong. Each one of us is trying to “kill” others for career, for money, for power.

Many of us encourage our children to become strong, we teach them “an eye for an eye…” not in order to protect themselves but to become leaders so they can have servants.

This is why our society is so ‘out of focus’.

But now, I am not going to write anything about our …beloved society. I will write some thoughts that we should have when (or if) we stand on the other side, the dark one (as we like to say) even if it is for just a while.

What do we do when we see a disabled person? Let me try guessing.

First we feel happy because we are not in his/her place (actually this is not that bad) and then we feel pity for them (and maybe relief because that means one less “problem” in our competition).

But have we ever truly tried to feel the feelings they feel? To see that they live in a world where they do not belong just because other people think so? To understand that things we have done daily since a very early age (walking etc.) for them are very hard to do?

Have we ever tried to make the quality of life of disabled people better? I am sure that many of us haven’t. Maybe because it is not our problem, maybe because we think that we have bigger problems to deal with. But if the day ever comes when this becomes our problem, then we will start to realize how false our beliefs were.

Think of prenatal control. Many couples do that because they want to know if the unborn baby has any disease. And with the help of medical science we are in a position to operate on the fetus and heal it if necessary.

So far so good. But what if the unborn baby has a disease that cannot be treated? One solution is abortion. The second solution is …? What? To leave the baby in an orphanage and pretend that it never happened? That it was a bad dream, and let’s start to make another baby hoping that this one will be healthy?

And if a couple’s baby is healthy, what if a problem comes up later? No one then (I think!) is going to “send it back” or leave it at someone’s door. At this point we are about to feel what we are made of, and what our society is made of! We will see that disabled people have no future (of course there are exceptions, but not too many). We will face their reality.

Take for example someone who didn’t care about disabled people, who was indifferent, and some day, an accident forces them to spent all their life in a wheelchair. Who can help them? Apart from family (if there is a family) they are alone in the lion’s den. Do we have to be in this place to understand disabled people’s problems?

And if God told us that we and our family will ever have such problems, what would stop us for changing our perception?

Yes, prenatal test is good, but is good only to prepare us for knowing if we’ll have a healthy or not baby. We bring a person in the world, a special person, a unique person because all the people are unique. A person with goods and bads who needs love in his/her life.
(I am stopping my scattered thoughts here saying that Life is to live and not to leave).

Konstantinos Pamfiliss