I frequently brag about my son, Francis, who, although blind, earned his PhD from Cambridge and is now a manager in the disability department for a very popular computer company in Silicon Valley, California (whose name I cannot divulge or I would be shot). He is a black diamond skier, licensed boat captain, volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, champion swimmer and, most important to him, a husband and father. He regularly changes diapers, and his latest advocacy cause has been to lobby the restaurants in San Jose to include infant changing tables in the men's room.

Francis has always said that he can do everything other people do except drive and see print, he just has to do things differently. He purposefully bought a house a block from the train station so he could take the train to work, but now he uses Uber. He does have his eye on the Google self-driving cars he sees whizzing around San Jose, but is waiting until they are perfected. He uses an application on his phone or computer to read for him, and has a high-powered magnifier for little things like price tags. Driving and reading is not such an issue.

Individuals with disabilities should be able to live fulfilling, independent lives. They, too, may have to do things differently. There have been great advances in telephones, especially in the technology for individuals who are blind, deaf or hard of hearing. My daughter, Marie, has a Sorensen Relay Video Phone and on it she can talk (using American Sign Language) with eight people at once. She sits in her bedroom and has a personal little party with friends. She can call the doctor's office to make an appointment, order something on-line, or turn away a telemarketer, just like the rest of us

An acquaintance of mine is paraplegic with no feeling from the chest down. He lives alone and does his own personal care, cleaning and cooking. He owns a large pick-up truck, into which he shifts his body onto the driver's seat, deftly folds up the wheelchair and places it in the seat behind him, and then drives off using hand controls. He has the ability to park his truck in the most challenging parking spots I would avoid at all costs. He is a regular skier using adaptive equipment, and kayaks when the weather is right. Doing these activities can be difficult and initially he had to build up the strength and the stamina in his arms to propel himself, but when he is flying down the mountain with the sun on his face and the wind in his hair, he is just as independent as all of the other skiers around him.

A fulfilling life includes what we do in our spare time. Kudos to the Showcase Cinema for having closed-captioning, real time captioned, amplified headsets, descriptive movie headsets, interspersed wheelchair spaces and sensory friendly movie showings. There are accessible viewing spots for WaterFire, and the gondola rides easily accommodates wheelchairs. Bowling alleys generally have ramps so those people who need to sit to bowl can do so easily. Most carousels around the state are handicapped accessible, as are the beaches that tote the big-wheeled sand chairs. The YMCAs in the state have lifts into the pool and accessible changing rooms. Some even have FEZ bikes on which a person who has a physical disability can pedal away, not to mention really pedaling down the bike paths in a recumbent bikes or handcycle. I have even been told that the zip line at Foxwoods is accessible for someone with a disability (as long as one signs the general waiver of liability, of course).

People with disabilities CAN lead full, independent lives; they just may need the encouragement to do so. Perhaps Steven Hawking is the biggest example of an individual who led an incredible life despite an almost totally incapacitating disability. My son, Francis, often ran into him when he was at Cambridge, cheerfully rolling around the campus in his electric wheelchair and greeting people using his eye-gaze computer technology. Hawking has been quoted as saying, “Concentrate on the things your disability doesn’t prevent you from doing well. Do not be disabled in spirit as well as physically.”