When our parents died when we were teenagers, I knew I’d have to grow up fast and help take care of my sister, Jess.  She’s a quadriplegic and has been in a wheelchair she was born. As her older brother, I’ve always had to look out for her, and I never minded it much because the truth is she looks out for me, too. When i finally acquired my licence, jess was too happy. She said she’d never been anywhere seeing as how she was stuck in that chair, and now she wanted to see the world. I never felt bad with my little sister coming along with me most of the places i visited. But one thing really bothered me and that was loading and unloading that massive wheelchair of hers. It was one of those motorized things and must have weighed around a hundred pounds. Either that or i am not too strong. But ofcourse i couldn’t tell any thing to her. But i begun to acquire a wheelchair lift straight away.

Shopping for a wheelchair lift is like shopping for anything else—you wouldn’t believe how many different models they have! There are basically two type of wheelchair lifts that can be used for you vehicle—an internal wheelchair lift and an external one. An internal wheelchair lift is secured inside the trunk of your vehicle and it slowly hoists the chair into your trunk, while the external models attach to the hitch of your car or truck and lift the chair into the trunk. Because of storage reasons, I decided to go with the internal wheelchair lift.

Jess reacted very positively and smiled on seeing her new lift. It was revealed later on that she was also bothered by the pains i took in loading and unloading the wheelchair for quite sometime.

“That’s sweet,” I said. But you need not worry about me.”

“I wasn’t,” she said, and smiled. “I wondered if you intended to drop my chair.”

We both laughed for a long time. Then we got in the car and went out for a bite to eat. With our new wheelchair lift loading and unloading her chair is a cinch, just like the stair lift we installed at home. I can’t believe I spent all that time struggling with it in the past. But hey, that’s what big brothers are for.