From the Introduction... "A family is easily recognized by their willingness to help one another. The bond that so closely holds them together gives a great feeling of security. But when you feel all alone and detached from this secure feeling because of the depression and hopeless feeling that a disability creates, where do you turn? You still feel like the same person on the inside you felt like before your disability but it's hard to remember all the happiness you once knew. Because you have changed, others around you seem to have changed as well. You really don't want sympathy and attention being called to your problems, you just want to be seen as you once were. Speaking for ABILITIES for the DISABLED and from my own experience, I don't think that others have really changed their feeling toward you. How are they supposed to respond to the depression and hopeless feeling they can't help but see in your eyes, especially when they don't really understand depression? I understand your feelings and want to help you understand them and the feelings of those close to you. You can have a family with ABILITIES for the DISABLED. We always see the "real" you inside. No phony hype or self-serving pity. We just want to help you take off that heavy burden that seems to entrap you and turn you into someone you don't particularly like any more. A "new family" can give you a "new life". Our objective is to get the disabled out of the negative situation they are forced to live in by changing their self-image and the "system" that spends their time helping them with their disability rather than their ability. We provide HOPE for their future and INCOME for their needs with work-at-home opportunities or jobs businesses are willing to offer them. Charity and disability benefits actually make them worse because everyone needs to contribute to their own support and to society in some way. Not doing so can cause poor self-worth or depression. Have you ever known anyone with poor self worth or depression to have any ambition to better his life?"

The contents of the booklet follow....Covering the years 1982 to 1995

"Over the past fifteen years, I have learned to become self-supporting with my disability and have never needed any help for anything. It was a difficult journey having nothing to depend on but myself, but today I can hold my head up and feel secure about my life.

My first step in overcoming the financial disadvantage of my disability was to realize that my mind and soul were not disabled. Ideas came from my soul and I implemented those ideas with my mind. The average person would not be proud to lower himself to do something less than he was accustomed to, but I was. I was no longer an average person but disabled and learned what a wonderful feeling true “independence” was.

After a severe automobile accident in 1982, my wife and I started over in life with adversities that could have defeated us. The first hard lesson I learned was that waiting for a settlement from the insurance company with hopes that the money could solve our problems was not a “cure” for the disability that was going to force us to change our lives dramatically.

When we received our settlement from the insurance company, it only replaced an automobile, furniture, and personal possessions we lost or were forced to sell. It did not replace the abilities I needed to resume my career in advertising and sales management nor did it replace the pain with the good health I used to have. What was I going to do with the rest of my life from that point on?

After the accident, we moved into a very old, small and dilapidated one-bedroom apartment which was a far step down from a four-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood that we did have. Being in a second marriage, my wife lost custody of her children to her ex-husband. We were as down and depressed as any two people could be in addition to suffering from painful injuries. My injuries were worse than my wife’s and being the breadwinner in the family we had to make a dramatic decision. We had to earn enough money to exist and decided to do so by working for ourselves. Not knowing exactly what to do and having no money to start a business, we turned to a “higher source” for the inspiration necessary for our survival.

I don’t know exactly how we did it but we came up with an idea of buying and reselling small antiques like clocks and hollowware. We went to an estate auction with just $200 and bought an old antique mantle clock and a few other things. We sold and traded these items to antique dealers and increased our small inventory and decided to try to sell these at a local flea market. We sold a few items. It was enough to pay for the rent of the flea market booth and have a few dollars left over, however, it was not the profit or volume we had anticipated. My wife noticed the things that were selling there were garage sale items, but where were we going to get garage sale items to sell there?

Undergoing physical therapy for my injuries twice a week and the pain and immobility that prevented me from barely walking or standing limited the time and ability necessary to do what I needed to do to rationalize and implement the ideas that came to me. But for some reason, in spite of all the difficulties, we discovered and went to an auction that sold used garage sale type items. Again, with our last few dollars, we bid on and bought items we took home to our small apartment. We discovered that these used appliances, electronic items, clocks, and cameras were all in unworkable condition. I didn’t know anything about repairing electronics, appliances, clocks and cameras.

They say that “necessity is the mother of invention,” so I sat down at the kitchen table and studied these worthless broken items. My healthy soul gave me the inspiration to use my healthy mind to figure out how to repair these items while my broken body with all its pain just sat there and watched. The pain didn’t seem to matter anymore because, all of a sudden, I had some hope of existing by selling the items I repaired. This was the start of learning to exist with my disability. Learning to really live again came gradually through slowly learning and building on this new knowledge and inspiration that was growing in me.

I never really complained again about my pain and problems. I didn’t consider myself disabled anymore because I was concentrating on my “new found” abilities. This new confidence of becoming self-supporting with my disability did wonders to my self-esteem.

Why would a person who was used to a much higher standard of living and a much more respectable profession suddenly be filled with such self-esteem? My soul was creating a new person in me. One with gratitude and hope. I forgot about what I used to have and started thinking about what I had to be grateful for.

I felt like a new baby that had just been born again into a new and exciting world of discovery and opportunities. New importances took priority in my life.

I was never ashamed of selling repaired junk at a flea market and did so for two years. I learned to repair and sell antique clocks that I bought cheap. I also enjoyed helping other people make their meager living by selling some of my repaired and “cleaned up, looking like new” items for what I paid for them unrepaired and dirty. I enjoyed the satisfaction of offering my used merchandise to customers at an affordable price. I took pride in turning a flea market booth into an attractive looking “store” with the merchandise being displayed like jewels in a jewelry store.

As I look back on a time so long ago and yet so recent, I know I was actually very happy to be alive doing something worthwhile that supported my basic needs in life.

Before I miss the point of my own experiences, I must say that not all people with a disability are lucky enough to be forced to learn to be self-supporting because they get imprisoned in dependency of some kind and are actually in more pain that I ever was. This is not to say that I didn’t have my share of pain, but I was fortunate to be in a situation that forced me to change my life. It was not fun or easy and it still isn’t even today, but at least I know that opportunities do exist for everyone to better themselves.

I have only covered the first two years of my fifteen-year struggle. I will try to bring us back to the present and the actual purpose of my experiences in a more timely manner.

After receiving the settlement from the accident and using the money to replace our losses, I tried to go back into business where I could use my old abilities again and failed miserably. I just could not do it. With a permanent back injury that prevented me from standing or walking but a few minutes at a time, I knew I could never be the same person again. Actually my condition started to worsen.

I thought and prayed, and prayed and thought about what I was going to do with my life again. I wanted to do something more than what I had been doing for the past two years. I really liked antique clocks, and they had become my hobby, but I wanted to do something more creative than just repair things for the rest of my life. In meditation one day, I saw a beautiful design for a clock in my mind. I immediately drew out the design and told my wife that I knew what I was going to do - design and build beautiful clocks that would sell in exclusive specialty shops.

I started building clocks from visions I saw in my mind. They were beautiful and different from any clocks my wife and I had ever seen. My wife said she would go out and sell them. My hope had returned. But a major upset was in the making.

Sales of the clocks started out very well. My wife was selling them to business and gift shops. We were not making a lot of profit at first but were optimistic about the future. But then, it happened. Not good luck, but bad. My wife got afraid of selling and froze. It seemed that the pressure of selling got to her. Her fear became her greatest disability. I said, “If we can’t make a living selling my clocks, I’ll repair antique clocks.” I made up a flyer for antique clock repair and restoration and asked her to pass out the flyers door to door. She came home three hours later with the car full of antique clocks given to her for me to repair. The next day she went to an antique store and got 20 clocks to repair and restore for them. Success at last! We stayed in that business for over four years and were very successful. I became an authority on antique French clocks and restored all the clocks at a local museum and did some public speaking on French clocks. Who knows what would have happened to us if I would have given up when the clock design and building came to an end.

The clock repair business started becoming more difficult after four years when my back and leg problems worsened. The mobility needed to repair the clocks was causing me intense pain even though most of it was done sitting down. This would not be the seeming end again. I just would not let these problems prevent me from living my life to the fullest.

I had recently purchased a video camera prior to my condition worsening. I had transferred my family’s slides and photographs to video tape for them. After I realized I would no longer be able to work on clocks anymore, I wrote a letter to the hundreds of clock customers we had for the past four years and told them how I had put my family’s slides and photographs on video tape and how I could also transfer home movies to video. I offered these services to them and we were overwhelmed with the response. Our new business of film to video transfer started out with a bang and has continued for the past nine years under the name VIDEO/GRAPHICS. The key to our success was never giving up hope and asking for the business. In 1993, I developed a new art medium that resulted in an article being written in U.S. Art Magazine about my new video art technique. I also had a solo art show at Emory University in Atlanta in 1994. Creative ideas have always opened new doors for me. My disability seems so insignificant compared to the abilities I have discovered.

I had always loved photography from the time I was ten years old and got my first camera. It seemed that I had an eye for capturing on film the feelings of images I saw through the camera lens. The video camera was the vehicle that continued that love of photography. My interest and hobby became my way of being self-supporting.

After starting the video business, we really started to live and live successfully. Life seemed to be as successful as it once was before the accident and better in many ways. I may have been confined to a chair all day, but with all my new equipment and gadgets, I was so totally involved in something I loved I ignored my problem. We had money for the things we needed as well as the things we wanted. We could at last afford to help out my wife’s children as well as others who needed our help.

My wife became very ill in 1988, and we had to make some changes in our business operations. We turned to the telephone to get all of our business since neither my wife nor I were able to go out and walk or stand well enough to make sales calls in person. She could still pick up and deliver the orders and the telephone proved to be a successful way of getting the business. We moved to Atlanta from Tampa, Florida, in 1989. Atlanta offered new opportunity for our business.

Three months after moving to Atlanta, my wife was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with a very serious condition. She was in the hospital or bedridden for over five months and had major surgery which had some very serious complications. She had been my partner in our business and did the things I could not do like picking up and delivering the orders. It seemed like I was being forced into an impossible physical situation. I would have to do her job and mine. The move to Atlanta had cost us all our savings and I could not afford to hire someone to help. Our business was new here and had not yet grown as it had in Tampa.

There is a philosophy I have learned to live by that I really had to prove more than ever now that my wife was in the hospital. Whether you are a person with a disability or a person with just everyday problems, this philosophy is TRUE and it WORKS for those who are inspired by its truth. “EVERYONE DOES THE THINGS THEY CAN’T OR DON’T WANT TO DO WHEN THE NOT DOING BECOMES MORE PAINFUL OR UNCOMFORTABLE THAN THE DOING.” Some people just “give up” and never let the “not doing” become painful enough.

I had to face the reality of my situation. If I did not do both my job and my wife’s, we would be facing the same problems we had after the accident in 1982. This time it could be worse. We may not have anywhere to live, no money for the car payment, food, or any other necessities of life. I could not cause her any more pain than she was experiencing then. I told myself that I could do it because I knew I had to.

For over five months, I did my job and her job in addition to being at the hospital with her all I could, taking care of her when she was confined to bed at home, going to the grocery store, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, fixing the meals, washing the dishes, and maintaining a cheerful attitude that speeded her recovery. You see, I didn’t have any time to think about myself or my pain. They say that the key to true happiness is "SELF FORGETFULNESS.” I must say that I did the impossible because I had to and quickly forgot my pain. There was something more important to think about than my pain. Unfortunately, after my wife recovered, I started feeling my pain more and more. How could I rid myself of this disabling pain again? I was doing all I had to do. I knew I needed to do MORE than I had to, again.

I have enjoyed helping others with their problems all of my life. What I needed now was for others to NEED me to do more than I had to.

For the next five years, I devoted my life to a purpose of helping others who were hurting in some way.

I met someone who was very depressed and suicidal. She was a very talented and intelligent person whose life had turned upside down with all kinds of personal problems and tragedies. Helping her made me forget about my own problems again and I started to feel better.

There was a 96-year-old elderly man whose family had placed him in a situation of having no place to go except a nursing home. We took him into our home and cared for him for over eight months.

My wife and I love children. We thought about helping a struggling young single mother by providing free baby-sitting and other financial help she may need. We ran an ad in the paper that said, “ADOPT A GRANDPARENT. Middle-aged couple with out-of-state grandchildren offer free baby-sitting and assistance to struggling single mother with pre-school age child.” For two years we helped to raise this wonderful child almost as our own. It was one of the most joyous times of my life. So much was given back to us that helped me with my pain more than anything I had ever done.

The mother of this child wrote us a beautiful letter that we framed and have hanging on the wall. She wrote, “I hope you guys know how much you mean to me and Taylor. Your are, without a doubt, the answer to my prayers and I’ll always be grateful to you both for all you do for us. In this day and age it’s sometimes difficult to believe in a kind heart but the two of you have shown me that they do, indeed, still exist. I sincerely believe that God’s hand put us together and in our eyes you’ll always be angels from heaven.”

This wonderful gift of appreciation to us totally changed my life. So much more was given back to us than we gave that it taught me something about my life that has strengthened my belief in “Self-Forgetfulness” being the real key to happiness and wellness.

As I look at my life today, I realize more than ever that I need to put forth my greatest effort in helping people like myself who have disabilities that are hurting their lives.

At age 51, my greatest challenge still lies ahead. I have thought much about how my own personal experiences and knowledge could help others. I hope that my own struggles and triumphs can help others like myself. This time, I realize a project this big cannot be done without the help of others or it would limit the number of persons I would like to help. An organization like “ABILITIES for the DISABLED” could involve many people who also believe in what I am doing. I am not afraid of sacrifice. I am not afraid of challenge. I am not afraid of anything that has a cause I greatly believe in. Overcoming fear is what creates courage. Courage can give anyone the insight to try what seems to be impossible. Doing the impossible is the only way of discovering why we were put here in this place and time. Discovering why we are here gives us all the happiness and rewards of life that we were put here to experience.

There may be some people who want to look away from those who are hurting or gawk at them for the curiosity caused by their lack of normalcy. I prefer to see people as caring and helping. I could see them as not caring and full of lack of understanding but I know this is not true of real human nature.

As I see myself and my reflection in others, I realize that I am no more disabled in life than we all are to some degree. Actually, we are all the same, and the world would be a much better place if we concentrated on our similarities rather than our differences.

At the time I wrote this booklet, my idea of ABILITIES for the DISABLED was just that - an idea. Since then a lot of other people have believed in what I wanted to do and have supported me in making this organization a reality. We still have a long way to go and a lot more people to help but we are now well on our way. I have found that almost everyone would like to help others in some way but they don't know exactly what to do. Our organization gives them that way to help.

If you are suffering from a disability and are as sick of your life as you are of your disability, don't give up. There is a chance for a change in your life. There is no way I could be led to help you unless something greater than me was doing the leading. I don't understand how some mysteries occur. I just know that they do. Even though I have never met you, I understand you and your feelings.

YOUR LIFE CAN CHANGE for the better. Perhaps you've become so complacent about living with your disability that hope is only a distant memory that gets fainter every day. Hang on to that faint memory. It may be the only thing that will get you to believe enough in what I am saying to let someone who really knows how you feel do something to help you start a new way of life. If this is something you really want to do and you are not too afraid to believe in something positive and haven't gotten too comfortable with your misery because of the familiarity of it, you can start to change your life now."

Abilities For The Disabled Introduction

A disability is defined as "any impairment of some major life activity that last six months or longer". It is usually a permanent impairment. There are 13.4 million working-age people in this country who have an impairment that effects their lives dramatically. The inability to contribute to society and to be self-supporting is a major life tragedy that usually causes depression. It is far easier for a person born with a disability to accept his life's situation. For those who have lost the ability to be "normal", it can have disastrous results.

For those who really want to be self-supporting and contribute to society by being employed there are, unfortunately, disincentives. The disincentives are the loss of medical insurance such as Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income, and the cost of transportation to and from work. This means that if a person with a disability goes back into an employment career, he could receive less total income than if he stayed home. There IS a way to avoid this dilemma and become self-supporting with or without losing any benefits you may now be receiving.

People with disabilities that prevent them from being employable often develop a dependency on others for their existence. That is the problem, they just EXIST. Given an opportunity to earn enough money to be self-supporting, they LIVE because their self image changes and they no longer are plagued with the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness which disable their minds and souls.

Many people have experiences not having enough money to make ends meet but not many have had to face the rest of their lives knowing they will barely have enough to just exist. To just exist means having "something" to put in your stomach and having somewhere to sleep but nothing worthwhile to do, nowhere to go, and nothing to look forward to. There is always a way to exist but that is not really living, it is a "prison" caused by a person's inability to be employable and lowering themselves and their way of life to qualify for disability "benefits" which keep them in poverty. Add poverty to a disability and you've got ultimate misery.

The problem has always been that society HELPS PEOPLE WITH THEIR DISABILITY rather than HELPING THEM WITH THEIR ABILITY. Think about it. There are far more things everyone CAN do than things they CAN'T do. ANYONE who dwells on the things they can't do is disabled in their thinking.

Cultivating an interest into a new ability is not as hard as everyone seems to think. A person who used to play a musical instrument, for example, can teach others to play or can be involved in music in some other way. Everyone has an interest or hobby that can be cultivated into a new ability that can create a new way to be self-supporting. It takes a lot of thought and effort to make this a reality but it CAN be done. If employment opportunities aren't available, self-employment can be an alternative.

I have experienced facing the possibility of a life of misery through my own disability. Mere existence offered no hope or happiness and was barely one step up from death. It took a lot of soul searching for me to discover that there was a way out of my situation.

It is my hope that by setting an example of my own struggle out of the negatives of a disability will encourage others to try to work their way out also.

Our business continued to grow at such a rapid rate that we were turning down more business than we were accepting.  In October of 2000, I realized everything my wife and I ever wanted was ours. The only thing left to do in life was to devote my time to helping others achieve this kind of perfect life.