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    On the Whole: A story of mothering and disability
    On the Whole: A story of mothering and disability
    On the Whole: A story of mothering and disability
    Ebook43 pages48 minutes

    On the Whole: A story of mothering and disability

    By Ona Gritz

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    About this ebook

    Ona Gritz has had cerebral palsy all her life, but until she gave birth to her son, she didn’t really understand what it meant to be disabled. Her cerebral palsy affects her coordination and balance but not enough to have ever truly hindered her. “For the most part, I considered my disability a cosmetic issue,” she tells us in On the Whole. “Just how obvious is it? Do people see me as pretty despite the limp?” But now she’s got a new baby to care for, and no one has warned her what a physical job she has taken on. She can’t bathe her son by herself or carry him up or down a flight of stairs. Nor can she feed herself or even open a refrigerator with a baby in her arms. And her baby will settle for nothing less than being in her arms. With lyricism and candor, poet Ona Gritz shares her son’s first years with us, a time when she wanted nothing more than what all of us want—to be the perfect mother, only her imperfections kept getting in the way. Ona Gritz is a columnist for the online journal Literary Mama. Her essays have appeared in More, the Utne Reader, New York Family Magazine, Brain Child, the Bellingham Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of two children’s books, Starfish Summer (Harper Collins, 1998) and Tangerines & Tea, My Grandparents & Me (Harry N. Abrams, 2005) and a full-length collection of poems, Geode, which was a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Ona is currently at work on a memoir. This is a short e-book published by Shebooks--high quality fiction, memoir, and journalism for women, by women. For more information, visit http://shebooks.net.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShebooks
    Release dateMar 9, 2014
    ISBN9781940838212
    On the Whole: A story of mothering and disability
    Author

    Ona Gritz

    Ona Gritz's first full length poetry collection, Geode, was a finalist for the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. She is also the author of a poetry chapbook and two children's books. Her book Tangerines & Tea, My Grandparents & Me was chosen by Nick Jr. Magazine as Best Alphabet Book of 2005 and one of six best children's books of the year by Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine. Ona's memoir, On the Whole: A Story of Mothering and Disability, is available now as an ebook.

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      Book preview

      On the Whole - Ona Gritz

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      On the Whole

      1.

      Do you have any medical conditions I should know about?

      I’m perched on the edge of the exam table, still in my jeans, when the midwife asks this, but with the question hanging between us, I may as well be in a gaping paper robe.

      Still, she did have to ask, which I tell myself says something. She hasn’t noticed my limp. Once again, I’ve passed.

      Cerebral palsy, I say apologetically. Only on my right side. A mild case.

      Jan looks at her clipboard and makes a note.

      I’m sure it won’t affect the pregnancy, I add, and she nods, moving to the next question on the list.

      With my confession behind me, I gaze around the room, taking in its pastel orderliness, the vase of lilies on the counter, the poster-sized drawing of a woman, her abdomen sliced to reveal the baby curled and upside down inside her.

      Any diabetes in the family? Heart disease? Are you on any medication?

      No... No…, I answer Jan, placing my good hand on my still-flat abdomen. Thinking, bustling little seed. Miracle question mark.

      Let’s have a look. Shall we?

      Jan stays in the room while I remove my pants and underwear and place them folded together on an empty chair. She has, I discover, no humiliating paper dresses. Nor those absurd paper sheets my gynecologist uses so we can both pretend we don’t know what he’s looking at.

      In Jan’s office, I’m given a cup and a litmus strip at the start of each visit and sent in to test my urine. I stand on the scale and write my weight in the file where my C.P. is a two-letter notation on some earlier page. Jan trusts me to know my own body. That first day, I said my disability is a nonissue, so she never brings it up. The only time it crosses my own mind within these soothing pastel walls is when she asks if I want to test for Down syndrome or spina bifida.

      No, I answer quickly. My C.P. clumsiness may embarrass me, but I know life with a disability is worth having.

      You don’t want to talk this over with Richard?

      No, I say again.

      Just weeks before, Richard and I passed an elderly couple as we were leaving a restaurant, the man slouched in a wheelchair, his wife struggling to push him along the gravel path.

      Do me a favor, Richard said once they were out of earshot. I knew what was coming. If I ever get to that point, just do me in.

      Inside me, my own fear of his or my debilitation battled it out with my indignation at my husband’s assumption that this man, a stranger to us, was

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