This was a story of when I was a child.
My home village was so small that I knew most people of village however, one house was not certain who were living. All shutters of this house were always closed and the curtains were neither.
One sunny day, when I was walking along this house, I saw a window of this house was opened. In there, a boy was standing without stirring an inch. He was just looking at the far side without thinking. I did not know who he was.
Several days after, I saw my family was talking about this house. They all sympathized with the boy’s parents. According to them, the boy suffered Cerebral Palsy when he was born, his parents were always hiding him in a room. And they rarely showed their faces, either. It was like Zasiki-rou (座敷牢: a jail inside a house ).
Like my village in a rural area, there was no choice without hiding a handicapped person. It was a real treatment for handicapped people in Showa period. Anyway, the rumor was spread to my village soon, so they hid their son again. The house was shuttered firmly.
Coming to Heisei period, I had a chance to visit their house. When I went there, the house was not shuttered and curtains were opened. When I rang the bell, the parents appeared. They looked bright. I did not ask for their son, the window was opened, too. I wanted to believe that Japanese welfare had done a job. It was a handicap which people who just wanted to live normally could not live normally. Handicapped people could not even see daylight unless something of support was there. It was not effective only told sympathetic words.
The story was changed to mine.
When I was in elementary school, my teacher suddenly told all students to take the footprints using ink. It was no problem because it was an ordinary scene in Japan, but my footprints were only different from others. The arch of my right foot was not seen. My teacher praised the students who had the high arch of foot as healthy, then said bad to students who did not have high arch. Also, this teacher picked up my footprints and asked why my right footprint did not have an arch. —— I could not answer. While I could not be answering, this teacher got to excite, then she accused me about it. She said, ” You are only strange.” —— Actually, for this flat foot, I could not run fast then I was slowpoke, I did not like playing outside. I usually spent time reading books. But the reason was not certain for just a child. Entirely, I was not blessed with a good teacher. She probably could not understand what Aufheben was. But in Showa period, health-consciousness was stronger than others ( for example, many people believed it good for health to tan their bodies ), being unhealthy became a reason to be bullied. So I struggled more at my junior high school.
No one understood the reason, but I had already been handicapped.
At the age of three, bamboo fence had pierced my right leg beside Achilles tendon. I remembered I went home with crying. Since then, I could not run fast. I was living while feeling abnormal on my right leg, but I did can run still. The bamboo had cut the tendon of Peroneus Brevis Muscle which gave a power to form an arch of foot. Strictly speaking, the tendon only suffered the damage, while I went to a clinical practice on my physiotherapist school, I had cut this tendon completely. Because I had to keep standing for many hours during this practice. the cartilage of Tibia bone became hitting with Talus bone, emitted a severe pain by wearing off cartilage.
My first work as a physiotherapist became to treat my right leg. I experienced to be capable to cure the abrasion of cartilage. But it took about 10 years to cure. Also I learned how to increase the intracapsular pressure not to contact the cartilages. Maximum load by isometric contracting for 10 seconds a day only. I was released from the pain of cartilage ( Immdiate effect was there ). When the pain was severe, I repeated the maximum loading for 2 or 3 times. Mostly, it was okay to do so. Then waiting for the recovery of cartilage. For this, it took 10 years.
I reminded the words of Paul in Rome while doing it ——
” Difficulty makes patience, patience makes skillfulness, skillfulness makes hope. ( Rome V:3, V:4 )”
I did not subscribe to the idea that the handicap was just a barrier. Handicap was the first step to elevate us higher. It was a gift from The Heaven maybe. We could get a chance doing Aufheben automatically. We should have been pleased with suffering handicapped. If you saw people who felt painful for their handicapped, there needed a support. No one could live alone. They only needed the supports than others. If you made them happy and also their family happy, I believed it was another Aufheben. They could get a new experience. If not, it was wrong of society. They did not understand what was handicapped.
To see the sunlight, whether you felt it hot or you considered it as a gift from The Heaven, which depended on you.
May The Universe in peace.
