Stephen Hawking, Wheelchairs, Death, and Freedom

Mar 15

Yesterday morning, I woke up to the sad news that Stephen Hawking had died. Stephen Hawking was a brilliant man, and his death was most certainly tragic, but his life was anything but. That’s why I was taken aback by all the memes and postings depicting Hawking as freed from his wheelchair by death.

This idea of being free from a mobility device by death chills me to the core every time I see it because it suggests that a disabled life is less worth living than a nondisabled life. It suggests that mobility devices are prisons, instead of recognizing the truth that for many a wheelchair is the ultimate freedom.

Without my wheelchair, I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere or do anything with even the slightest modicum of independence. I would truly be trapped and confined.

With my wheelchair, I am free. With my wheelchair, I went and explored the shores of another nation. With my wheelchair, I live independently and travel about the city I love so dearly. With my wheelchair I get to make my own choices about where I want to go, and who I want to be, and so did Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair didn’t confine him or limit him, it offered him the freedom to be a part of this beautiful complicated world.

Wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and all mobility devices are beautiful tools. They are not shackles, they are not prisons, they are liberators. They allow us to live the lives we want the bodies we have. Because of this great technology, Stephen Hawking could share his amazing knowledge with the world. Because of his wheelchair, because of his speech device, not in spite of them.

Stephen Hawking was a brilliant scientist and a disabled man. Neither one of those things negates the other. He was not brilliant in spite of his disability. He did not overcome his disability to achieve great things he achieved in life. He achieved great things while being disabled. Disability is not a tragedy or an inherent negative, it’s just a part of life.

Hawking did not focus on his disability has something he needed to overcome. He focused on unlocking the mysteries of the universe. He didn’t focus on having a body that worked “perfectly”, or the way society thought it should.

In fact, he reminded us that imperfection is what brings unity and diversity to the world, saying, “one of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply does not exist. Without imperfection neither you or I would exist.”

Being disabled is something you live with, not in spite of. Being disabled is not a bad thing, it’s just one piece of the puzzle that makes us who we are. Disabled people like Stephen Hawking have beautiful, valuable, complex lives, all while still being disabled.

It would be arrogant of me to pretend that I know exactly what the afterlife has in store for us, but I certainly hope the freedom we experience when we die goes far beyond ditching the mobility device that saved my life and allowed me to live on my own terms.

When I think about death, I can assure you that of all the things I want to be free from, my wheelchair isn’t one of them. I want to be free from ableism, the fact that people treat me as less than human because I roll around on wheels instead of walking. I want to be free from inaccessibility. Most of all I want to be seen as a complete, whole, and valuable human being, exactly as I am, wheelchair and all.

Ditching the chair doesn’t even make the top 100 on my list, and I would be willing to bet it didn’t on Stephen Hawking’s either.