His Abilities Never Stopped Amazing Me



Mouth Painting - Dennis Flynn Stinson III

 His abilities continued to amaze me every day.

My father was always talented. He was a very unique man. He was self taught in everything and became very accomplished in most of what he set out to do. He was technically minded, but he had the soul of an artist.

Unfortunately, my father did not leave a lot of time in his able-bodied life to explore what he might accomplish with his artistic abilities. He spent most of his days and time, when not working, with his family, playing with us kids, getting into mischief.

Once my father became a quad, there was an abundance of time. He began to explore more in depth those things that he seemed to not have the time for as an able-bodied man. It saddens me sometimes when I think about what he (and my mother for that matter) gave up in their personal lives to be amazing parents to us.

Now that I am a father, I look to my parents as examples. I find myself in the same contradiction, facing the laundry, cleaning the house, getting ready for one of her events, and finding little time to continue to explore the areas of interest that I have. I would not have it any other way, and I believe truly that is what my father felt, which without fail, lifts my spirits when I begin to think of what he gave up in his able-bodied life.

As a quadriplegic, my father grew greatly in his art. I am in the process of capturing digitally all that he did. He became a painter, worked with glass, and stamped out images on tin. He made cards for all seasons, and began to teach himself perspective drawing.

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The Abilities Expo - L.A. Convention Center

Image by wili_hybrid via Flickr

The Abilities Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center

So, who is going to be attending this event!  It starts on the 15th and ends on the 17th!

This is going to be a great place to see all the new technology out there.  A place to learn, a place to watch great events, and attend great workshops!

If you are going to the event, I would love to hear from you and your reports of the event itself!

I look forward to seeing you out there!

The Hardest Thing to Do with A Quadriplegic is Leave

Image by Kjirstin via Flickr

Leaving was always the hardest

Every time I had to leave my father’s bed was difficult. A surge of emotions would wrap me up like a straight jacket.

I had a unique relationship with my father, a mirror of that with my mother. I tell everyone that truly I believe I had a fairy tale child hood, minus the million dollars – although, I do not know that a million dollars would have made us any happier as kids. See, my father and I were best friends, much like my mother and I, but not without the loss of parenting. As a child, I was still reprimanded and disciplined as a son by both, but I would rather, for most of my youth, go and hang out with my father or parents for that matter than my friends.

My father and I would get up early on the weekends and go get into trouble, often times with my Uncle, who has always been in my heart and mind, my dad as well. We would get into new stuff all the time, the trio, my brother as well. I am unable to remember much of my youth without my father and Uncle in it.

As my time with my father on any particular visit ended, it became chokingly hard to leave. I would begin to remember all the days he and I were together. All the times he spent at my side if I was sick or hurt. All the sacrifices he made. I would start to lay the guilt on myself. How can I be leaving right now? Am I really giving him, this man that gave me everything he had, my full heart, time and attention. The answer of course was yes, he knew that, and anyone that knows me knew it. However, a convicted heart can be hard to talk with.

Of course, most of this stems from my underlying guilt that I created the issue that sent my father into his transformation.

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NO GAS - PROTEST

There is a protest to buying gas on the 31st of March, 2011!  Already there are over 1.5 million people attending this and supporting the cause!  I hope you join in and maybe we can even all extend this a few days!  If everyone was to puchase gas the day before and was able to extend their tanks out 5 days or more, surely in an optimistic world, something has to change!!

It's a long shot, but it is nice to see people coming together at least on facebook to make this event happen!!

Here's to an attempt to fight back!

Check out the links to read more:

DEAN C. STINSON

NO GAS PROTEST

I Use To Fear Expalanation to my daughter

I use to worry about my daughter meeting my father. Once we got pregnant, I began to think about how to explain her grandfather to her.  How was I going to explain how and why my once strong and mighty father was now a quadriplegic.

I am not sure where this came from. I never felt the need to explain my father to anyone. I certainly had no loss of respect for him, but I guess I was concerned with how my daughter would come to understand him. Sadly, before my daughter was capable of fully understanding her grandfather, my father passed away.

Now all I think about is why I wasted any minute of my day on such a silly concern. Watching my daughter, it is obvious how we as parents feed her fears and concerns. Children are so accepting and non-judgmental.  They begin to learn their reactive skills from us.

My daughter did get to meet her grandfather; it saddens me that my son will not be able to meet him though. My daughter saw my father often, not as often as I would have liked. She and he loved their time together. Since his arms were of little mobility, she would lay on his stomach and kiss him, suck on his chin, poke his face and play with his instruments that gave him some freedom, like his computer microphone that controlled his room.

I am encouraged with my daughter’s love of God and growing understanding of heaven. I believe that she will come to understand my father, even though physically she will not remember much of him. My son, too I believe in my heart will grow to have a love and understanding of their grandfather.

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I became a Quadriplegic Too

I became a Quad too. My dad was not the only one that was now a quadriplegic.

The minute I got the news that my father was in the hospital, my life changed as much as his was about to. There at the hospital, late into the night, I sat and watched as my father began to lose his bodily functions. First, it was his feet. Then it was his legs. Then it was his hips and the loss of sensation in his abdomen. It continued like this hour after hour, until at least 12 hours had gone by and he stopped breathing. I was next to him. His panic-stricken eyes, searching in me for help, and then frantically dashing around the room, trying to find help. The nurses ran in, threw me aside, and began the intubation process. Once he was on the machine, they put him on medicines that kept him asleep and caused him to forget the event all together. It would be over 30 days before I would see him open his eyes again.

When he awoke, it set in; my dad was a quadriplegic now. I would go on to work day and night in all my free time trying to figure out how to save him, how to bring him back to the super dad that I grew up with, to keep him from this vegetable state. Many people surrounded him and me through these years, but no one really stopped to look at what I was doing, including myself. I became a quadriplegic too, not in the physical sense, but mentally. I stopped in many regards, figuring out my life. I did a lot to work on my emotions, to attempt to battle the pain I was going through, developing my spiritual senses. I worked very hard to become the best employee I knew how in my career, but the inner me, my true voice, was being thrown aside.

I blame no one; it is what we call life. It was very uncomfortable for me to talk about my feelings of anger and hurt. How is it fair I tell anyone of how bad I am feeling when my father is now a human pillow. The guilt I would create (me and me alone, my father was never one to apply guilt onto me) surrounding this cyclical thought path, became a destructive part of me I have told no one about: feeling bad for my father, then for me, then mad at myself for feeling sorry for myself, when I was the able bodied, and he was the quadriplegic. On the surface, it would be impossible at best to tell this was my inner demon. I have arguably done well professionally, I was married almost 5 years ago, to which we purchased a home and are on our second child. However, it is just today that I am realizing how paralyzed I truly was through all of this and to some extent still am.

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A Saddened Heart



Sandra & Jerry, from The Dance Within

It is with sadness and hope, hurt and joy, that I remember Sandra Bray Wilson.  It is always an impossibly difficult time to say goodbye to anyone in your life.  I know, as a Christian, that Sandra is with God, my own father, and our angels.  She is finally whole again and she has no more pain.

We will miss Sandra terribly and our hearts and prayers go out to Jerry, her loving, caretaker and husband, through these difficult times as well as all that knew her and loved her.  Jerry and family and friends,  I hope to stay in touch, we are here for you. 

God bless Jerry and Sandra...

With Love,

Dean and LWaQ


Forever in our Hearts Sandra....
http://thedancewithin.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/note.php?note_id=433670556190&id=794069744
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