My dear friend Marlene was bound to help a 70-year-old neighbor in her community who needed a wheelchair and couldn’t afford it.
This is what Marlene wrote in a recent post: “Let’s call him ‘Gene.’ Gene was born with Cerebral Palsy. His siblings made fun of him and his father left after seeing how profoundly disabled he appeared. But Gene was a strong willed “I can do it” kid and it served him well…until he couldn’t do it. I have watched these almost three years as his body played havoc with his independent nature.”
At first his application for a wheelchair was denied, but after Marlene fought back, it was approved, as she explains in the post below.
Medicare covered everything except $1000 of the cost, and it will be easy for a few people to help in modest ways to ease the burden from Marlene’s account. If you are touched by this story, as I am, please check in at Marlene’s blog that I have linked. I think her next post will probably let us know the best way to pitch in.
All of this happened around Thanksgiving, and I believe it is appropriate that it made me think about gratitude and how it works. There are two sides of gratitude, I realize: the giving and the receiving. We don’t have to always consider what we receive. Marlene is such a good example of a person who gives, and I am grateful that she constantly reminds me of how to be a better person.
She used the expression “cultivating kindess.” Marlene said in her blog that she’s not especially close to Gene, but she simply couldn’t stand it that he was in such need and had no family or friends to help him. She stepped in.
I want to be the kind of person who steps in.
Conscious Engagement 
A heartwarming story. You are a stepper-in Crystal
Thank you, Derrick. As are you.
You are the kind of person who steps in. You do it with your marathon runs to raise money and in many ways I don’t even know. I’ve already raised $400 of the $1000 the chair cost and this chair serves him better than a basic chair Medicare provides. It made no sense for him to pay for something inadequate. We sidestepped Medicare and I’m happy to cover the rest of the cost. I could cut back on sweets for a while and be ok. The main focus is that the Medicare system, like every other system works on the box philosophy. If you fit in the box, all is well. Most don’t. ‘Gene’ has lots of special needs so his chair needs to accommodate them. He just doesn’t do systems well and our world is becoming an endless system of boxes none of us fit in. Make a phone call and see how fast you get a human, especially if your speech isn’t clear. This has been quite the education for me. My ‘Cultivate Kindness’ quilt is still out in the hall as a reminder to all those that pass by, it’s little things that help as well as big things. Thank you so much, Crystal for passing this on and caring enough to do so. There is still more work to do for him and I’ll get to it next week. I’m getting company this week. 🙂 I hope. Love and hugs to you, my sweet friend.
Oooh, I hope your company can make it! I’m glad to hear that things are still going well with the new wheelchair. I completely agree with you that it doesn’t make any sense to pay a lot for an inadequate chair, when you can pay more and get a good one. I’m glad your good sense (and TS’s encouragement) prevailed. What you said about fitting into a box is a good description of VA disability benefits, that I worked on for 11 years. I was so pleased to be promoted to the Appeals section, because then I was allowed to use the law to argue back, and give people benefits using clever applications of law. I felt like only my lack of knowledge kept me from awarding a benefit to every veteran. That was a good use of my brain and I’m glad my work for VFW is a way to still use it a little bit.
My company did make it. Brother’s I haven’t seen in way too many years and a niece. I’m exhausted now but it was a very good visit. T.S. put a link on the last blog but I’ll have to get it one the next one after I write it. Maybe tomorrow night. Will expound further as the brain bandwidth returns.