I was avoided even before COVID-19

People with differences know social distancing

After the pandemic upended time, space and every interaction, and my family cocooned and formed a nuclear pod, we began to break the boredom with long walks through our suburban neighborhood after dinner each night. Although many neighbors we passed offered a wave, I noticed a new normal.

People approaching each other on the sidewalk would play a game of chicken, one set would be first to veer off course and enter the street to avoid passing the other too closely. It reminded me of swerving away from a boy in kindergarten during recess because he had the “cooties.” In our new normal, the slower family on the walk was made to feel like they had cooties. Maybe they did, or at least feared the possibility.

Yet, the sensation struck personally for me, because I understand the painful experience of having people steer clear based on your very presence.

A difference I couldn’t hide

I was born with a rare genetic condition called ectrodactyly that I passed on to both our sons. Although I joke that the term sounds like I am a type of dinosaur, it simply is a Greek term for missing digits. I only have one finger on each hand (shortened forearms) and one toe on each tiny misshapen foot.

The boys have a similar version of my difference and, all together, the three of us only have 18 digits combined. Once a kid asked me if I missed not having 10 fingers? My reply was instinctive. “How can I miss something I never had?” I manage through it all by making the most of what I do have rather than focusing on what I don’t.

As a result of our difference, I’ve witnessed strangers whisk their kids away from us, hoping to avoid an embarrassing outburst. Until the pandemic, I’d never been able to explain what it feels like to have people feel uncomfortable around you, try to avoid you, to not want to even touch you.

Although I’m American, my family spent several years of my childhood living in the Middle East and South Asia. Today, an internet search for one-fingered people would yield hundreds of pages of photos and information about people like me. But, back then, I had no way of knowing if I was completely alone in the world or not. Often embarrassed by my condition, I frequently hid my hands in my pockets.

Discomfort that crosses cultures

I discovered, too, that my difference was cause for alarm from the locals. When we lived in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, street children and homeless adults would approach us for money, take one look at me and let out a yelp while rushing away. I didn’t have to understand what they were saying to know what they meant. To them, I was contagious or our family was cursed.

Once on a visit to the Taj Mahal, my parents observed people ignoring the breathtakingly beautiful white marbled mausoleum to stare at me instead. “Tsk, tsk, tsk” was the common refrain of pity I received from passers by. One extremely hot afternoon on the way back to our hotel near Agra, India, we passed a group of people begging on the street. As I leaned to get a closer look, my father whispered the term leprosy in my ear as he squeezed my hand with a tighter grip and pulled me away while explaining the risks of the condition.

But as he tugged, I couldn’t help but catch the eye of a young woman whose neck appeared to have patches of discolored skin. When I looked down, I saw that she had fingers on her right hand only and few toes on her feet. Although her face was largely covered with a dark brown cloth that almost resembled a mask, her dark almondshaped eyes were focused on my small, disfigured hands. But instead of making me feel uncomfortable by staring, she nodded.

It was in many respects one of my life’s most poignant moments. I finally had discovered someone else who understood the emotional impact of living a life in which people are uncomfortable just being near you because of you.

The pandemic has given everyone a taste of what it feels like to walk in my shoes and have others keep their distance wondering if you pose a contagious threat. It gets in your own head and can make you doubt yourself. It can feel isolating and demoralizing.

Eventually, let’s reconnect

Although this horrific experience has taken a great emotional toll on people, I am hopeful that it will yield an unexpected benefit. Perhaps when all this is behind us people will remember how it feels to be the object of fear. Maybe they’ll think twice before they avoid eye contact with someone blatantly different or grab their kid’s hand to cross the street to avoid an undesired encounter.

It occurs to me that as a person who is different, I can draw upon a lifetime of such experiences and report that I survived them all.

As we navigate through this unprecedented chapter in history, we must not be scared. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. It looks like no matter who we are or what we look like, we’ve got to go through it (socially distanced) together.

Meg Zucker is a managing director and head of U.S. anti-money laundering at RBC Capital Markets and president and founder of Don’t Hide It, Flaunt It, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that provides national empathy programming in schools.

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