Because it's Independence Day

by Kristina Chew

categories: Advocacy, Policy

Published July 04, 2009 @ 04:21PM PT

Having noted that we're skipping the fireworks, I thought I'd sound a more Fourth of July-y note. Today is the last day to sign the action to Tell President Obama to Fully Fund IDEA. There are currently 1203 signatures----I had set the signature goal originally at 500 and it's been something beyond marvelous to see how many people have signed the petition. Actually, I have to say that knowing so many people support the right to students with disabilities for an appropriate education calls for some........

Virtual (and therefore quiet and not excessively over-stimulating) fireworks!

But before putting your feet up to watch the parades and celebrations with a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done: Have you asked your Congressperson to support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act? Or told the St. Lucie County School District to respect the rights of students with disabilities? If not yet, pleased do it.

We've still a long way to go to provide students with disabilities with the education they need to help them learn, grow, and achieve and be all that they can; we've still a long long way to go to support individuals with disabilities of all ages (though Dora noted one victory this week and in my own home in the Garden State).

It's the Fourth of July today; it's Independence Day. Teaching Charlie to talk, to take care of his own needs, and so much more----these are how we've tried to set down the roots of independence for him. We're not at all sure how "independent" Charlie will be able to be as far as his living situation and even his ability to communicate his needs and thoughts. It also should be noted that our "tight team of three" 's life with autism has as much a lesson about interdependence. From something I wrote last Fourth of July:

How independent are many of us, anyways? My mother-in-law has long feared to do anything on her own; she doesn’t even pick up the phone, but waits for someone else to do it, and rarely ventures outside the house without her husband. My 102-year-old grandmother, Ngin Ngin, has always lived among others, many others; after her children had grown up and moved out and my grandfather, Yeh Yeh, had died in 1975, there were always families newly arrived from China in her house, always elderly women—”old friends,” really distant relatives by marriage—sitting at the table with us. I can’t say that Ngin Ngin was “totally independent”: Not knowing English, or how to read and write any language, she was limited and has lived all of her life (since she came to the US in the 1920’s) in Oakland’s Chinatown.

Maybe it’s not independence we need to be thinking and planning so much for, as about acknowledging how dependent we are on each other, how we need to live in community.

Certainly I'm glad to be spending my Independence Day with my favorite little community, our little family---that tight team of three.

And that's something to celebrate with (quiet) fireworks (in soothing hues of blue and grey) every single day!