The next day, as I sat at my kitchen table, calling the same customer-service numbers again and again, a -familiar feeling thumped in my chest. While we worked on the script, I wanted to capture the frantic helplessness that can come when your basic rights are not in your control. You can hold up a protest sign, put your body on the line, hurl your voice to the sky, write yet another email to legislators, and still, it often feels like you are entirely at the mercy of a few people at the top who aren’t even listening.

Two days later, my husband found the frame of my wheelchair dropped off on our doorstep, scratches across the front, two parts dangling. They never found the wheels. A replacement pair arrived three weeks later. 

While I recounted the ordeal to Siân, we marveled at the irony. Here we were, telling the story of a woman who took on the airlines for disabled passengers to have equal access to travel, and 50 years later disabled travelers still take the very real risk of our lives being upended every time we fly. We have come so far. We have so far to go. I saw the dichotomy everywhere. It was my generation’s job, I thought, to build on the progress Judy’s had fought for. What I didn’t realize at the time, however, is that we wouldn’t just be advancing it—we’d be defending it as well.