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Kaleidoscope – Winter/Spring 2011

Number 62

Winter/Spring 2011

Biannual

Jennifer Vande Zande

There are few among us who can say that a disability, in some form or another, hasn’t affected our life or the life of someone we love. Whether it is an accident that results in paralysis, a struggle with mental illness, chronic disease or a learning disability, the fact is, according to the United States Department of Labor, nearly fifty million people in this country have a disability. Kaleidoscope, born out of a beautiful idea back in 1979, is the literary journal published by the the United Disability Services. It gives voice to those living with, or within the shadow of, a disability. This issue of Kaleidoscope is a thoughtful literary collection that focuses on the experience of disability while avoiding any unnecessary sentimentality. Within its fiction, personal essays, poetry, articles and reviews the undercurrent moves readers through content rich with honest stories of determination.

There are few among us who can say that a disability, in some form or another, hasn’t affected our life or the life of someone we love. Whether it is an accident that results in paralysis, a struggle with mental illness, chronic disease or a learning disability, the fact is, according to the United States Department of Labor, nearly fifty million people in this country have a disability. Kaleidoscope, born out of a beautiful idea back in 1979, is the literary journal published by the the United Disability Services. It gives voice to those living with, or within the shadow of, a disability. This issue of Kaleidoscope is a thoughtful literary collection that focuses on the experience of disability while avoiding any unnecessary sentimentality. Within its fiction, personal essays, poetry, articles and reviews the undercurrent moves readers through content rich with honest stories of determination.

The essence of what Kaleidoscope is [and should be] can found most readily within its essays. Not written by people who feel that they’re victims with some sort of cross to bear, these pieces, instead, offer very tender perspectives on very personal situations. The result is a wide range of writing from those so often defined only by their limitations.

“Good Friday to my father…” is the personal essay of Therése Halscheid who, at fourteen years of age, nearly succumbs to ravages of anorexia. As her body wastes away, dementia lays to waste the mind of her father: “Of our own hours, to you it did not matter I was not in the kitchen that morning or that I had stopped eating. That my own heart had weakened to the point where it slowed. You did not know I kept to the attic, the little bedroom you fixed for me when you were well.” The heavy emotional burden that accompanies such suffering, coupled with a keen awareness of herself, allow Halscheid to skillfully distill a troubling personal history into a beautifully written narrative that, in the end, resonates with the peace one finds only after intense personal struggle.

Meanwhile, Margaret A. Frey chronicles the difficult time following the 2 a.m. fall from a fraternity house roof that leaves her son with a traumatic brain injury in her essay entitled “The Other Side.” Frey is suddenly thrust into the medical nightmare that so often results from such a devastating and complex injury:

Cynthia was the only medical person who had uttered anything positive in the last four days. I would find out later, she’d been warned off by attending physicians, cautioned after preliminary neurological evaluations indicated a grim prognosis. She was wasting her time, the doctors and reports unanimously concluded. Bryan’s chances of a functional rehabilitation were minimal.

Occasionally, we are fortunate and receive a gift in the midst of crisis and despair. For Margaret A. Frey, that gift was a touchstone named Cynthia, an R.N. who specialized in physical therapy: “‘It’s going to be all right, Margaret,’ Cynthia said. Her eyes remained fixed on Bryan. ‘Trust me. He’ll be okay.’”

Kaleidoscope stands as a portrait, not of a group of wounded souls hopelessly tied to wheelchairs, medications or assistive technologies but to a group of those among us who just happen to live with a disability. Thankfully, there is no hidden agenda to be found within the pages of Kaleidoscope, just good writing gathered together to encourage readers to explore places they have not been and perhaps discover something about themselves.
[www.udsakron.org/services/kaleidoscope/]

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