Summary Of Riding The Bus With My Sister

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Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey by Rachel Simon chronicles the year Rachel decided to ride the bus with her sister, Beth. Beth is a spunky and forthright woman with a mild intellectual disability. She builds a community of support through her favored pastime- riding the public buses around town. Rachel and Beth are close in age, but grew distant over time. Rachel agrees to spend a year riding the buses with Beth in an effort to mend their relationship. On their rides, Rachel is introduced to a troupe of bus drivers, who are funny, independent, knowledgeable, compassionate, and wise. As Rachel seeks to know her sister better, she also comes to better understand herself. This is facilitated by interactions with various bus …show more content…

Vik, Nygård, Borell, and Josephsson (2008) described the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health’s definition of participation as involvement in a life situation. One important factor of participation is agency, which is the ability of an individual to competently reason and communicate power through various means. In their study, the authors found agency to be an indicator of making decisions, choices, and actively participating in daily life. Beth was an agent of her own life with every decision she made as she exercised her right to self-determination. One example of Beth’s self-determination comes early in the book, when Rachel attends her Plan of Care meeting. There, Rachel meets Beth’s care team and becomes aware of Beth’s financial and medical situations, and her safety, relationships, hopes for the future, and lack of interest in classes, participation in an organization, or a job. While this lack of interest concerns Rachel, her care team honor her right to self-determination, and accepts her negative responses without debate. In time, Rachel comes to the realization that Beth is an agent of her own life, actively choosing how she will participate. She chooses where and how to travel, when and what to eat, and how to dress. Rachel acknowledges “She is, in many ways, the embodiment of self-determination” (Simon, 2002, p. 194). This realization eases her tension, as she begins to accept Beth’s choice to ride the buses and understand the way she chooses to participate in

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