Through The Picture Photography

We discussed the frustrating balance of living with your disability hidden or revealed. On how people react to the disclosure, he grew frustrated. "They start asking or protecting you--and you want to throttle them. Or they say....but you can do all these things, why not that?-- And I'm like...[screw] you. Seriously." The whole topic of empathy and dealing with people with various differences grew for him, and he continued. "It's this arbitrary thing of wha'ts normal, and that's bullshit. What is normal? There is no normal. We're humans. We're organic imperfections, every single one of us. So it's crazy when we get uneasy. 'It's a defect, it's an abnormality'.... What is really is is it's different," he said as we finished. It reminded me of what he'd said only a few minutes earlier about kids reacting to visible difference, and the parents. "It's not bed when kids, little kids, see someone with a 'deformity' and blurt things out... people say [not to ask] and I was like dn't do that, it [that reaction] is teaching them that different is bad, don't be uncomfortable talking about it...". As his daughter, I know that he really does believe this. "I liked when the kids did it," he added. "I wish more people could have that curiousity and not be uncomfortable."