We all can get bogged down in our shortcomings and faults and then begin to mentally--and physically shut down. When this happens, I like to read about people like Pete and Liz Fordred--then I begin to remember that "impossible" and "possible" are states of mind. I met them last weekend (10/18/03) at the "Abilities Expo" while researching options for an exciting project for paraplegics called Eaglewings. ed.
Don't say, "You can't" to Liz Fordred, or her husband Pete. Paralyzed in her teens, Liz met Pete Fordred through her work at the same Rhodesian hospital where she had been nursed back to life. Pete was in a rollover at age 19, and some thought his career as an electrician would be over. Not Pete, and not Liz. Shortly after they were married, they hit upon an idea: Why not build a sailboat? Why not learn to sail? And why not sail the boat across the Atlantic?"
Many people thought they were daft and told them so. (There were no wheelchair ramps, let alone awareness of paraplegics' true capabilities in the late 70s in landlocked Rhodesia, which later became Zimbabwe.) With their families' amazing support, they built a boat from a concrete form in a huge hole in Mum's flower bed. The amazing couple worked day jobs and built every square inch of their boat at night and on weekends, using borrowed tools and improvized parts.
The part that amazed me in the detailed and often humorous narrative is the sheer willpower it takes to haul, grind, position, and weld heavy parts with only a wheelchair or arms for mobility. Moreover, the fiercest obstacles they overcame were not debt, bureaucracy, illness, lack of experience, or tropical storms. It was doubt and derision. Yet they overcame all these--especially the last, with wit and a will to show that disability is only the state of mind of those who think the disabled cannot do what others can. Read Liz's book--it will strengthen your resolve to cross the Ocean only you know you must cross.
(For more inspiration, learn about one paraplegic man's amazing invention, "Eaglewings," which allows paralyzed people the ability to traverse long distances with a handcycle that attaches to one's wheelchair. With no need to transfer to a separate vehicle, bruises leading to pressure sores are eliminated.
Thank you Liz and Pete for sharing your wonderful story!reviews: page 1, 2Premanently crippled in a fall from a horse, Liz Fordred refused to accept the limitations assumed for her in the Rhodesia of the late 1970s. She met and eventually married an equally (if more quietly determined) accident survivor named Pete Fordred, and together they hatched an audacious plan to build a boat and sail around the world. That they lived more than 1000 miles from the ocean and had never sailed before did not stop them. Neither would their lack of money or the fact that basic boat equipment was impossible to obtain in Rhodesia. Fabricating metal parts, learning carpentry, and resolutely tackling one seemingly insoluble problem after another, they built their boat in three years, trucked it to the South African coast, rigged it, learned to sail and ultimately sailed the boat to America, where they forged a new life in Florida.