Look outside the shoe

I first saw Jessica Cox on TV and like everyone else who saw her, I admired how she went beyond her disability – she was born without arms – and did stuff that not every able-bodied person could do. Like fly a plane. Or surf. I don’t even apply makeup with the same expertise that she does and yet I have hands. She does so with her feet. 



Anyway, I viewed that segment on that early morning news program with the same detachment that I view novelty shows. Entertaining, yes, but not really relevant.

And then I had the chance to see her when she was invited as one of the motivational speakers in a conference that our company hosted for its employees.

What struck me was that she was very normal. She made everything seem normal. And yet you couldn’t forget that she had no arms because it was just staring you in the face. She was just so self-sufficient and unself-conscious about her disability (she prefers to call it condition) that to dwell on it would make one seem rather patronizing.