Disability is a natural aspect of the human condition. As people live longer, as we fight more wars, as medical care continues to improve—more and more people who might have died in an earlier era will live. Perhaps with a disability. We should accept it. Plan for it. Build our society around it.

I recognize now that exclusion, especially at the level and frequency at which I experienced it, is traumatic.

At camp I didn’t have to worry about what I needed, or how much help I could ask for at one time. I didn’t have to secretly rank what I needed in order of importance so as not to ask for too much at once. I didn’t have to feel that bad feeling I got when something was inaccessible and someone said no to something I knew I could have done myself if

We accepted that our inclusion was dependent on someone else being “nice.”

We were drunk on the freedom of not feeling like a burden, a feeling that was a constant companion in our lives outside of camp.