To the misinformed man at the Zehrs on Malden Road in LaSalle the morning of Sunday, December 21,

You watched my 48-year old mother park her car in an accessible parking spot in front of the store and proceeded to follow her in to the produce section and verbally harass her in front of countless shoppers. Throwing around accusations you presumably made simply by judging her appearance (as I highly doubt you had with you a copy of her very extensive medical history), you berated her by snarking, You don't look handicapped! four separate times. Had you taken a second to inspect the front of her vehicle in the parking lot when you began this witch hunt, you would have seen a valid accessible parking permit displayed in her windshield. Perhaps you did see her permit and were still shocked to discover that she looked like a fairly typical middle-aged woman. You're right she DOESN'T look handicapped.

Perhaps you are unaware that accessible parking permits are not limited to elderly persons or persons with disabilities who use assistive devices like wheelchairs or canes. In fact, any one of any age can apply for an accessible parking permit. In order to receive a permit, one's healthcare practitioner must approve that he or she is eligible. As I doubt you were privy to the discussion my mother had with her family doctor nearly a decade ago about her medical conditions and this application process, it is highly inappropriate for you to comment on her use of accessible parking spaces.

Did you know my mother has experienced a series of serious back injuries for which she has had corrective surgeries? The answer to that is NO, you did not, and you certainly did not ascertain that information from looking at her. Did you know that the success of those corrective surgeries has been very limited, making it difficult for her to walk far distances and stand for any longer than necessary? Again, NO you did not.

As I know nothing about you, I won't sit here and pretend to understand your motives and reasonings like you pretended to understand my mother's health. Perhaps you have a family member with a severe physical disability and you have had to battle for accessible parking spaces your whole life. Perhaps, like members of our family, you have grown sick of people abusing the accessible spaces by parking there without permit and leaving those truly in need of their utility out of luck. If this is the case, I completely understand where you are coming from. As a family, we too have seen these abuses and personally, I have been tempted to get vocal about them in the past. However, what I have never done and what you so wrongly did this morning is verbally harass someone in a very public space over something you know absolutely nothing about.

Judging a person's eligibility to park in accessible spaces by their age, shape, size, gait, clothing, or speech is discriminatory and ignorant. Lambasting them to the point of tears in front of complete strangers is abusive. For whatever reason, you decided to become the champion of accessible parking today and thought publicly shaming my mother was but one small step in your all-important fight. If, like our family, you continue to be upset by the misuse of accessible parking spaces, I suggest you try to address the problem at a different level. Personally attacking each individual you see won't get you very far in fixing this problem.

If you are still confused by accessible spaces, I suggest you visit the Service Ontario website https:/ / www.ontario.ca/ Accessible parking permit.

Sincerely,
A concerned (and fed up) daughter