In
1964, Victoria Mavis had a tragic injury at the age of four that resulted in
brain trauma which left her partially paralyzed and disabled. Facing a grim
diagnosis, she fought for her life and had to relearn basic functions such as
walking and talking. Despite the endless physical therapy she endured as a
child while confined to a wheelchair, she was left with a walking disability
post-injury that would worsen over time, thereby causing her lifelong reliance
on a wheelchair or forearm crutches for her daily mobility.
Within
a year of her disabled accident, Victoria Mavis would be the first child with a
physical handicap to enter a school system that wasn’t equipped structurally or
culturally for her special needs, or for that matter for disabilities of any
type. It was a period marked in history when those with mental or physical
disabilities were shunned in public or institutionalized; but that’s not the
vision her parents had for her, despite her obvious disability.
Victoria
Mavis, armed with her disability, wheelchair, and her walking stick (forearm crutch)
which she named ‘Steve’ has been a pioneer for equality of treatment for
individuals with disabilities starting in an era when people who were disabled
were considered social misfits, were openly ridiculed, and were discriminated
against for access to public systems because of their disabilities. Victoria
paved the way for others who ‘didn’t fit in’ long before the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) was ever proposed or before ‘bullying’ was a community
epidemic to resolve.
Victoria
Mavis has grown professionally and thrived in a world where her handicap (with
or without the accompaniment of a wheelchair or forearm crutch) was the ‘pink
elephant’ in the room which no one spoke about—including her. Details of her
disability did not exist in a public dialogue or open conversation, as few
outside her immediate family ever knew the story of what caused her injury and
knew even less of the horrific discrimination based on her disability that she
faced over the years by those who judged her abilities (ableism) only by the
gait of her walk. Friends, coworkers, and everyone she encountered would only
be left with the power of her presence and her sheer will and determination to
succeed, despite her limiting physical disability.
Her
book, Every Scar Tells a Story, is inspired by a lifetime of hardships and challenges (not
just those associated with disabilities), and strength to overcome whatever
roadblocks may have been placed in one’s life either inadvertently or
unconsciously. Its message is simple and clear; to share her hurdles and that
of her characters with insights on how they were overcome, so that others may
do the same on their journey to a fulfilled life through their own form of
ableism.
