My friend Jessica lives in Baltimore, Maryland. We met on on a summer program and don’t see each other much, but we try to facetime once or twice a week to catch up. We became friends the first time that we roomed together, one week into the program, and Jessica told me that she thought one of our counselors has a crush on the other one, and she’s upset because “she’s stealing my man!” Jessica is hands down one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Once you get to know her, she’s a big ball of fun and happiness just waiting to be conversed with.
     

  Jessica and I can only facetime because she has difficulty holding the phone to her ear. She has a condition that takes over her body and limits her ability to speak. She has an incredible amount of intelligence, her mind is fully there, but her disability restricts her from being able to move her neck and arms freely and be in control of her movements.

I cannot honestly say that I believe the world would be a less beautiful place without special needs and disabilities. I cannot say that people would be less happy or joyful, because I do not know if that is necessarily true. Quite frankly, I do not think that a person with a disability could even make that statement. But I do think the world would be a different place without special needs. A disability makes more prominent the essence and special traits of a person. I think of it kind of like the phenomenon that when your left eye doesn’t work your right eye works better, or when you cannot see that well your hearing is superior.

When I was younger, I had extremely curly, frizzy, untamable hair, which made me prone to always wearing it in a tightly pulled back ponytail. I wondered why I had been given such a thick, auburn burden. My mother, with her innate ability to give forth life lessons without even knowing it, said to me, “Well, what would happen if you had the same perfectly shiny, straight, easily tame – able hair that the other girls have? Do you think that you would always wear your hair in a ponytail with your hair away from your face? Of course not! It would always be down, covering your face like the other girls wear it. Hashem obviously wanted your beautiful face to be shown!” The message was clear, and is strangely applicable. If Jessica didn’t physically stand out because of her disability, perhaps she would fade in with the crowd. Her disability enables her bubbly, fun personality to stand out against a seemingly unfortunate backdrop. Initially, people assume that by hanging out with Jessica they are doing a kind act, and much to their surprise they are the ones benefitting. People see Jessica and expect her to be some kind of underprivileged, unfortunate person simply because they see her physical condition and special needs. You should just see the look on people’s faces after spending five minutes with her; they’re laughing, smiling, and definitely regretting their initial judgment. If she did not have special needs, people would not have the opportunity to fight over who is pushing her in her wheelchair that day so that they can benefit from her entertaining comments and remarks. The fact that Jessica was created with things she is not capable of doing makes so much more prominent what she can do. In a world where everyone wants to fit in and fade in with the crowd, special needs come to remind us that being different does not need to have a negative connotation. Being different can, if we let it, make more apparent what is so special about us as individuals.

Quite a cliché question, but could we even envision a world in which everyone was the same? If all would have the same needs and the same abilities, it would be a world of easy unity, and therefore would not say much about our effort to love one another. It would be a world where imperfection is even more so not accepted. It would be a world with no reminders that being different is good and okay and acceptable and special. Most of all, it would be a world devoid of standing out.

In a world without special needs and disabilities, perhaps Jessica would still be Jessica, but would she stand out for being the fun person we all know and love? I believe Jessica’s special needs are like my tightly pulled back pony tail: her disability was mandated from G-d so that her “face”, her sparkling personality and qualities, could be revealed more so and made to stand out.