08/12/2026
I met Eddie on an ordinary day. I had gone to buy a cabinet from his neighbor, and somehow I ended up talking to Eddie afterwards. Within minutes he had me laughing. Eddie is, without question, one of the funniest people I have ever met, a natural born comedian who could probably do stand up if life had given him a different set of cards. But underneath the jokes, he shared a little of what he has actually been through. And it stopped me in my tracks.
Eddie is 51 years old and lives here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, currently sharing a small apartment with his mother. He is living with his disabilities, which include Dystonia, PTSD, anxiety and Dyskinesia. Day to day, this means Eddie is fighting battles most of us will never fully understand, and he is doing it quietly, without complaint, and mostly on his own. Of course, always with a smile on his face.
In 2019, while living in a residential assisted living facility, Eddie was assaulted and stabbed in the chest. He nearly lost his life. He survived, but he lost a lung in the process. He carries that trauma with him still, and it has left him with PTSD that makes it hard for him to be around large groups of people. He keeps to himself. He does not have much of a tribe. What he does have is Daisy, his emotional support animal, who has stood by him through all of it.
I did not go looking for this. Eddie crossed my mind yesterday while I was working on an art piece, completely out of nowhere, and I felt like I needed to reach out. I’ve recently discovered a new nonprofit here in town, NextStep Fort Wayne Paralysis Recovery Center, and I thought Eddie should know about it. Through an old marketplace message thread, I tracked him down. One day later, I understood just how much he needed help, and how little support he actually had around him.
