His chart read like a list of losses: no speech, no eye contact, hand flapping, no interest in others. By age five, milestones expected years earlier had not been achieved.

His dad told me a different story: “He’s shy. He’ll catch up. Some kids just take longer.” He smiled as he spoke, but his eyes gave him away. His denial wasn’t ignorance—it was love that refused to let go of hope and that braced against fear.

Meanwhile, the baby brother babbled and waved. He cried when I checked his ears, burying himself against his father’s chest. Across the room, the preschooler pressed his hands tightly over his ears, trying to muffle the outburst. The contrast was stark. While the father soothed the baby, I reached for the older child. He drew back from my touch, his gaze locked on the floor.

No physician would diagnose me with a disability. That label comes from within myself; it has been with me since I was age twelve and reached my adult height of 5’8”. I felt like a physical outsider—a Brobdingnag in a world of Lilliputians. Walking through the halls of junior high and then high school, I adopted the turtle trudge—head buried in my shoulders to try to take inches off my height. All I succeeded in doing was ruining my posture and causing my neck to constantly ache.

Dear readers,

When I think of a disability, the image that pops into my head is that of Christopher Reeve, the sturdy, handsome, good-humored actor who played Superman in the movies and then suffered a horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

His story is a reminder of how fragile and uncertain health is, and how it can collapse under us at any moment–no matter how gifted or strong, handsome or fortunate we may be.

During my medical career I took care of many people who were disabled, although most of these disabilities didn’t involve wheelchairs or crutches.