The MAMF October 2025 Facebook Banner

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. This month’s Museum of the American Military Family (MAMF) banner is designed to draw attention to those in our midst, at work or elsewhere, who have disabilities. While the banner features someone in a wheelchair, it is important to remember that many people have invisible disabilities. We may not be able to see them, but they are still challenged by them. I find that often-misattributed quote very helpful when thinking about this issue: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”

While it’s important to remember the struggles that people with disabilities face, I think it is even more important to remember that they also make major contributions to our society. Despite their disabilities, they have jobs, raise children, and contribute in so many ways. Disabilities do not define them. Their contributions do.

I have a few minor disabilities that make mobility more difficult for me than the average person, but nothing big enough yet for me to feel a need to claim disability. However, about eight years ago I broke my right leg so badly that I was nonambulatory and wheelchair bound for two months. I had an external fixator in my right leg. I couldn’t put any weight on my right leg for two months. I had two surgeries to correct the break (one to install the fixator and one to remove it). That was followed by six months of physical therapy. I walked with a limp for eight months.

Because I was in a wheelchair for two months, and on crutches for four more months, I became suddenly hyperaware of how, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), most places are not equipped very well to accommodate people with ambulatory disabilities. That was an educational period of synchronicity for me, where I was hyperfocused on the issue simply because I was so dependent on those accommodations. People would park their cars blocking the easy access ramps at street corners, blocking my ability to cross the street in my wheelchair. All of the pushbutton door-opening mechanisms for wheelchair-bound people at Glacier National Park that summer were turned OFF. If my husband had not been with me I would have been trapped either inside or outside the lodge. I was also surprised at how unhelpful people were when they saw me struggling.

We can do better, people! All it takes is a little awareness, kindness, and compassion. Look around wherever you are. See if there is someone who needs your assistance. Help them.

And if they don’t need your assistance because they have an invisible disability, simply BE KIND. So much good and productivity can be facilitated just by being kind to the people around you.

So, during this October, please try to be more aware of those around you with disabilities, both visible and invisible, and in the words of John Wesley:

“Do all the good you can,
by all the means you can,
in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can,
at all the times you can,
to all the people you can,
as long as ever you can.”

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