It's like my friend Doug Bates used to say when he met a fellow cancer patient. "I've heard you've joined my club, the club no one asks to join." Disability is a lot like that.

I have to wonder if Craig Ewert would have made a different choice if he had met disability advocates Ricki Landers and Tina Johnson, two Utah women who left us too soon. Or if he knew Barbara Toomer, who has devoted her life to the cause of people with disabilities? Or if he could witness the tireless advocacy of Andrew Riggle from the Disability Law Center? There are several other Utahns I could name if only space were available.

None of them asked to join the club. But they made deliberate choices about how they would use their abilities to help others. In the process, they've taught us by example that their respective disabilities didn't get in the way of living productive lives.

The greatest living tribute to their many collective years of advocacy was my fellow bus passenger.

Marjorie Cortez, who counts many people in Utah's disability lobby as heroes, is a Deseret News editorial writer. E-mail her at Marjorie@desnews.com