Cheryl Marie Wade

*[Image description: Wade with frizzy hair and a jacket in a wheelchair with her feet, in slippers, in front of her.] Credit… Brenda Prager.*

Cheryl Marie Wade died in 2013 at age 65 from complications of rheumatoid arthritis.

“She embodied and modeled disability pride before it was a thing,” Judith Smith, who worked with her in two Bay Area performance groups, Wry Crips and Axis Dance Company, said by email. “Cheryl was unapologetic, proud, complex and loud.”

“Instead of trying to fade into the nooks and crannies as good Cripples of the past were taught to do,” [Wade] wrote, “we blast down the main streets in full view, we sit slobbering at the table of your favorite restaurant, we insist on sharing your classroom, your workplace, your theater, your everything. The comfort of keeping us out of sight and out of mind behind institutional walls is being taken away. And because there is no way for good people to admit just how bloody uncomfortable they are with us, they distance themselves from their fears by devising new ways to erase us from the human landscape.”

(Neil Genzlinger, “Overlooked No More: Cheryl Marie Wade, a Performer Who Refused to Hide,” NYTimes, 7-23-20)

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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2 Responses to Cheryl Marie Wade

Karin Bennett says:

August 28, 2024 at 9:45 pm

Cheryl was my cousin. Our Mothers were twin sisters and Cheryl was 4 years older than me. I never really saw her as a disabled person and even after she started using a wheel chair, she was always just my cousin Cheryl. She always wanted to play school when we were kids where she was the teacher and my twin brother and I her students. It was a game where I preferred recess, but we stuck with it. I used to love to play in her wheel chair. She was brilliant till the end and a fighter, and I was devastated when she passed away. I took her ashes to Mt St. Helens and released her ashes with all the new life growing in the wake of the eruption. I am so proud to be her cousin, and I will always love and miss her.

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- JMN says:
  
  August 29, 2024 at 5:14 am
  
  I’m so glad to receive this comment from you. I knew of Cheryl and her passing only from reading of it. Her story, her personality and her words moved me when I encountered them in 2020. You are fortunate to have known her in person and as kinfolk. Thank you for the lovely history you provide here. Best regards!
  
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