Imagine a simple object. Metal frame. Two big wheels. A seat.
It’s silent. With a joystick. Just a thing.
But for many who look just the thought of it sends a chill down the spine.
Not because of what it does but because of what it means.
When we grow up, somewhere along the way, the wheelchair stops being a chair on wheels and becomes a cultural horror story – a symbol of lost independence, sadness, life shrinking. People don’t see the object. They see their own future fears reflected back at them.

Before someone ever sits in one, the wheelchair often exists in their mind like a cliff edge – the moment everything changes.
But talk to people who actually cross that line, and the story is different. The cliff becomes a bridge. The thing that once projected unbearable fear becomes the thing that brings back some freedom – movement, access, possibility.

When you cross that line, fear stays behind. The object that once terrified us becomes the object that carries us forward.