Also, here is a cool site with stories and even music:

http://www.reddisability.org.uk/famous/DisFamous.htm

This site contains hundreds of successful people that were or still are disabled, a biography of the person, and their disability:

http://www.tampagov.net/dept_mayor/Mayors_Alliance/famous_persons/index.asp

To show how love and respect worked for me, I’d like to describe an incident that happened when I was teaching in Corvallis, Oregon at the Children’s Farm Home.

For fourteen years, I had a Sheltie named Feather, who was raised in my classrooms and spent every year of her life winning the hearts of disturbed children with her ever present joy, love of life and all of those around her. I can’t tell you how many kids she befriended, calmed and soothed over the years.

As usual, she inhabited my classroom with the some of the state’s most dangerous children. These children were adjudicated as anti-social and unfeeling. Not one of them ever harmed a hair on that little dog’s head. She was surrounded by their love.

In 1998, she contracted breast cancer, which spread rapidly. Finally the day came when I knew I would have to put her to sleep. On a Friday, my students and I said “Goodbye” to Feather. We held her little body in our arms and hugged and cried together. The kids held me too and wiped away my tears. The next day, the vet came out and gently helped Feather out of this life. I hope that she is somewhere beyond.

That Monday when I returned, the kids gave me flowers that they had picked and pictures that they had painted of Feather. Then, the most touching moment came. Alan, a boy who had kicked and hit and hurt many of the staff, including me, asked me to come outside with him. We sat on the porch together and he gave me a little clay dog that he had made. Then, he put his arms around me and whispered in my ear, “ I am so sorry you lost your dog.” We hugged and cried together.

Love finds a way like nothing else.