Mikelle and I feel compelled to write about life with a disability, not just the challenges but the opportunities, the friendships, the innovations, and the brilliance of our communities in action as we share our everyday life living with a disability. With a little more information, motivation, we hope to share how our life is shining beautiful and maybe help you to shine beautiful, too.
What Grows After the Fire: A Fourth of July Reflection on Freedom, Renewal, and Belonging
The Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love the flags lining Main Street, the small-town parades, families gathered around picnic tables, the smell of hamburgers on the grill, and the evening sky filling with fireworks. This year feels different because I’ve stopped loving this
Community. It is all about relationships.
Forty-Two Candles and a Community of Friends June has been one of those months that remind Mikelle and me how quickly life moves and how important it is to pause long enough to appreciate it. In just a few days, Mikelle will celebrate another birthday. Forty-three years ago, I couldn’t
The Places Between Us, Why Belonging Still Matters.
Is This Radical? There is something quietly radical about gathering people together simply to listen. Not to debate. Not to persuade. Not to win. Just to listen long enough for another human being to feel seen. The Shining Beautiful Heartbeat That is the heartbeat beneath Community: The Structure of Belonging
The Work That Happens Before Sunrise: The Quiet Architecture of Care
No matter how the night before went — whether it was one of those restless nights helping Mikelle up several times, adjusting blankets, repositioning pillows, offering reassurance in the dark, or one of the rare and treasured nights of solid sleep — the morning always comes. And with it, the
When the Storm Settles In. Medicaid cuts, system accountability, and the quiet work of holding care together
Medicaid cuts, system accountability, and the quiet work of holding care together. Mikelle’s life works because of her team—the steady, intelligent, creative, and caring women who show up every day and make it possible for her to live a full and meaningful life in her community. The other morning, I
When the Storm Rolls In: What Happens When Systems Are Tested
Mikelle and I love living in Colorado. The weather changes quickly here. From our vantage point just east of the mountains, we can watch a thunderstorm take shape—clouds gathering in the early afternoon, rising and building until they tower 50,000 feet into the sky within just a few hours. Sometimes
When the Budget Tightens: I remember those that came before me.
Change The winds of change have arrived this March, along with summer temperatures. Out here in Colorado, we know something about change. From the weather to the headlines, it seems everything is changing and probably is where you live, too. A clear morning can turn into a towering thunderstorm by
Where the Sparks Fly. Friendship, Families and the Discovery of Customized Employment
Some of the best ideas in my life have not been born in conference rooms. They have been born in places that feel more like the wide sweep of Montana and Idaho than fluorescent lights and folding tables — places where the wonder of brainstorming in natural settings opens something
Building a Community that Outlasts Us
There are gatherings that feel like endings. And then there are gatherings that feel like standing high above tree line in the Colorado Rockies — where the air is thin, the sky is unreasonably blue, and you suddenly understand how small you are and how connected you have always been.
Love is not naive. Gratitude in not denial. And, joy is not disengagement.
Complicated….perhaps. February refused to come in gently. Here in Colorado, winter has been as evasive as a good news story. Still, we love. And yet, loving ourselves in uncertain times can feel complicated. Many families, caregivers, and advocates are carrying a quiet tension this year. Funding landscapes are shifting. Policies
Love as a Creative Practice in Uncertain Times
February arrives quietly, carrying the language of love into a world that still feels unsettled. This is not the easy love of cards and flowers, but the steadier kind—the love that stays when systems strain, when grief lingers, and when the news refuses to soften. In traumatic times, loving ourselves
Still Working. Still Believing. Still Building Opportunity.
And, still laughing. There’s a particular kind of laughter that shows up when people have lived through enough systems change to know two things at once: that the work matters deeply—and that taking ourselves too seriously won’t get us very far. That spirit framed our recent conversation with Cary Griffin,