My Color Wheels

  The first wheelchair I had at age four, was pink and black; It was chosen by my parents. They didn't do a bad job; pink was my favorite color at the time. However, when I was eleven, I'd out grown that wheelchair so it was time for an upgrade. I went with my parents to the mobility center and after measuring me, testing my strength and verifying my disability, it was time to pick my wheelchairs.

  I say wheelchairs, because I was qualified for two; a manual and an electric. My parents debated about allowing me to have an electric. My mother insisted I would need it in my new school, where I would have to travel to more than two classrooms everyday. It was finally agreed that we would get it since this would be the only opportunity to do so for a while - better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it was the final argument.

  Since I was older and very vocal about what I liked and disliked, they allowed me to choose what colors I wanted the wheelchairs to be. I sat down with the color tiles and flipped through them as the specialist explained that I could have my name embroidered in different colors or have beads added to the spokes of my manual wheelchair, my eyes lit up with interest, but my mom said 'no' -- anything that made a lot of noise was not my parent's favorite idea.

"Can I have two different colors?" I asked the lady assisting us.

"You can have as many as you'd like," she replied.

"Can I have different colors for both of my wheelchairs?"

"The manual one, we can use up to three colors, but the electric one we can only do one color." she answered.

  I thought about it for a moment. I was torn between six different colors.

"I want the electric one to be silver," I said, holding up the tile labeled 'silver.'

"That looks more like grey than silver," my mom frowned.

"But I like it." I said.

"No, pick out an actual color," she insisted.

"This is the color I want," I argued.

"If you want to argue with me, I'll pick out the colors," my mom warned.

  Some parents might say something like that as a threat, but mine never threatened us. If my folks said they'd do something (like throw away toys if we didn't clean our rooms) they did it. I didn't want to let my mom pick out the colors of my wheelchairs, so I conceded and picked out another color.

"Is this color okay?" I held up a teal colored tile. At the time, I thought it was a good second choice, but I wouldn't chose it today.

"Yes, that one is beautiful," my mom happily agreed.

  Finally, it was time to pick out the colors for my manual wheelchair. This was the chair I would spend the most time in, because I liked to push myself. I called it, 'exercise for my arms.' I put more time and thought into deciding which colors would best represent me. I wanted to be the cool, fun kid at my new school. When I look back now I realize that the colors I chose definitely represented my personality: Hot Pink, Yellow and Lime Green.

  I thought my mom would never let me have a wheelchair in those colors, but she seemed thrilled by my choices. When I asked her why she liked my manual wheelchair colors, but didn't let me have a silver one her response was, "Your wheelchair should reflect your personality and yours is not grey."

"It wasn't grey, it was silver," I corrected her.

"You're definitely not silver either," she said. "You're gold--or hot pink, yellow and green," she laughed.

"Why is that funny?" I asked.

"Oh you'll see, someday."

  And when I look at the photo of me in my crazy color wheelchair, I totally get it.

Me, age 15. Not the best quality, but the color is what counts!