How it started

I said "Puppy, come, I want you to meet this guy because he wants to fight with you." The fellow took one look at the dog, froze for an instant and then took off so fast even Puppy couldn't have caught him.

It was an early, but classic example of what was to become my overriding philosophy: Do whatever it takes. In this case, the simple solution – pounding the guy into hamburger – was denied to me, so I had to get creative. What would I have done if Puppy had not bounded up?

Perhaps I would have started a conversation with the guy. Maybe I would have enlisted the aid of a bystander. I could have zipped back inside the hospital. At every moment, we have more options than we can imagine; and one good thing that comes from handicaps is that it opens one's eyes to the reality of that.

In any case, this guy was an example of the kind of garbage that gets poured into some unfortunate people's brains, usually when they are children and can't ward it off. Fortunately, such profoundly insensitive people are rare.

The worst was yet to come

But the most distressing situation arose as Puppy and I walked passed a primary school playground. One kid spotted me, shouted something to the others and soon they all broke off their playing and ran to the fence to stare at me. Then, by twos and threes at first, but soon en masse, they chanted: Monster, monster, monster, monster..." Teachers swooped down on them immediately, herding them inside, admonishing them for such behavior.

But I was struck by a feeling of loss. I was not offended by what they had said. I did, indeed, resemble a monster that a child might have seen in a movie – rather like Freddy Kruger with a few Frankenstein stitches thrown in.

But I had an overwhelming desire to show them a vital truth: that someone who looks monstrous on the outside can be good, warm, funny, and caring on the inside, someone you might like as well as you like your best friend. I knew that chewing out those kids for their boorishness would not be half as effective as personally showing them their honest mistake. That there was a good person under all that scar tissue. I wanted to tell them something that a wonderful speaker and good friend shared with me much later. That the wrapping might have been damaged but the gift inside was still in good shape.

I think at that moment I subconsciously resolved to make sharing that message with people, especially kids, the focus of my life.