Last Tuesday night, I rounded up a couple of friends and went to the Great Lives talk about Stephen Hawking. In all honesty, I did not know very much about Stephen Hawking before the event. I knew only the most basic stereotype of him; he was a disabled man who made great scientific discoveries and advancements for both his field and the human race as a whole. I felt guilty for having such a shallow and generic profile of him as I listened to his life story.
The talk was given by Kitty Ferguson, who had worked with Hawking before and was also a friend of his. Listening to someone who had a personal connection to such a well-known name changed how I perceived him. She gave him a new narrative, at least in my mind, by covering his life from childhood, marriages, friendships, and scientific contributions. While his disability was a prominent part of her talk, Ferguson never spoke about it in a discriminatory or defining way, it was just a fact of his life. She focused less on how ALS disabled him, and more on what he did in the midst of adjusting to his course of life.
Overall, I think Ferguson’s representation of Hawking as a brilliant person that happened to also be disabled was done really well. She used Hawking’s life to inspire the audience, but not in a derogatory or self-serving way that used his disability for pity. Ferguson’s talk left me feeling more connected and knowledgable about Stephen Hawking’s great life.
I’ll leave you with this quote from her; “He helped us all, disabled or abled alike, to be less afraid.”
