“We stopped at our favorite BBQ place on the way home from the hospital.
Callie felt stable enough to go in with her crutches.
We got a ton of stares. More so than normal. I’m talking like fork held to their mouth frozen, in stare type looks. Their eyes finally moved from her prosthetic blade to the crutches and then back again.
I stepped in front of her to ‘shield’ her from their questioning, gaping eyes. At the same time, James stepped in front of both of us.
We are used to it, and most of the time it doesn’t bother me. The times it does though, tend to hit me hard.
It’s amazing that people are still not regularly engaging with people like Callie in their daily lives — otherwise they wouldn’t have batted an eye. If they followed on social, shopped with, supported, and interacted with people different than themselves…
We wouldn’t be an oddity to them.
So, this is my plea to you.
Diversify your feed.
Share content from differently abled people (feel free to share ours if something resonates with you).
Interact with people who don’t look like you or have the same physical abilities you do.
Buy children’s books which showcase people with special needs and different abilities.
And please…
Don’t stare at my little girl.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Jaime. You can follow her journey on Instagram and her blog. Do you have a similar experience? We’d like to hear your important journey. Submit your own story here. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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