It’s time to transfer to my powerchair, I wake, I’m helped up and in I go. From the moment my tush hits the seat I feel empowered, ready to go wherever my wrist dictates.

First stop, the kitchen, for my morning dose of coffee!

Sitting on the kitchen island is a tall cup of the miracle nectar, piping hot, bent straw in place. Next, raise my chair to drinking height, sip, sip… ahh.

S²D², Ground Hog Day, Rinse and Repeat.

The days blend together after a while, this includes the feeling that I’m witnessing life just whizz by at warp speed. I sit in the center of my home and I see my kids and wife going a mile a minute, in and out, buzzing past me.

Hi dad, by dad, as I sit.

I move about, never catching up, just when I do, they bounce in another direction. Yet as the blur of their movement leaves a visible trail in the light spectrum, like specter’s moving through time. I can’t catch them so I sit patiently, until they orbit me and notice… me.

It’s not them that has sped up, it’s me that has slowed. ALS has forced me to now experience life from a new vantage point, a much slower vantage point.

Patience is the mechanism by which we find the right pace to meet each other in this dichotomous universe we find ourselves in.

Time in a wheelchair, it’s a paradox.

TJ&O