In less than 24 hours, Julie Farrar quit her job after discovering that her paycheck was 10 hours short, ended her marriage, registered her 35-year-old self for class at Metropolitan State College, and discovered she was pregnant with her third child.
Today, four years later, as Farrar rolls her wheelchair across the stage to receive her diploma while her three proud daughters look on, she revels in the two big triumphs: a bachelor’s degree and motherhood.
Born with sacral agenesis, a developmental disorder of the lower spinal column and pelvis, Farrar has limited use of her lower torso and legs. As a child, she became so agile, on or off the crutches she used until she was 12, that her longtime friend Chad Zeman remembers her as the strongest child he knew.
“She could walk the length of a block on her hands,” Zeman said.
“You think she’s energetic now? Imagine her as a kid.”
Tiny, with stick-straight brown hair and a ready smile, Farrar often strikes new acquaintances as deceptively buoyant.
“I tell everyone that my life fell apart and fell back together the way it was supposed to, although there were times I certainly didn’t think that,” Farrar said.
Her two older girls, Elizabeth, 8, and Jessa, 13, roll their eyes when classmates gripe about occasional chores that pale alongside daily caring for 3-year-old Jade and other responsibilities that have given them exceptional acumen.
“Because my mom’s in a wheelchair, I do think it makes me more tolerant if I see someone with Down syndrome or Tourette’s,” Jessa said.
Last fall, after giving the eulogy at the funeral of Zeman’s older brother, Farrar caught up with the Zemans. When she met fellow mourner and architect Beth Hennessy, Farrar shifted to the networking she polished as an intern for state Rep. Jerry Frangas and an Arc of Denver board director.
Farrar had just received funding from the nonprofit Home Builders Foundation to make her aging home wheelchair-accessible. Steps led to every room in Farrar’s Park Hill house, requiring 5-foot wheelchair ramps that crowded the small space. To use the cramped bathroom, she crawled from her wheelchair to the tub and toilet.
Hennessy agreed to draw some plans. Zeman and his building partner, John Baumgartner, offered to help with the remodeling, “and the project kind of grew from there,” Zeman said.
Between professionals spontaneously working for free or at cost, and volunteers from Metro State, the renovation is nearly halfway through.
“People aren’t doing this because they pity her,” Zeman said.
“We’re doing this because – well, of course it’s something that should be done – but people meet her, and with her positive attitude, she’s someone you want to help. There isn’t this sense of ‘poor me.’ You meet her, and you want to do something for her,” he said.
With her degree in nonprofit administration, Farrar intends to work as an advocate for the disabled.
“The coolest thing in the world would be to improve the lives of 10,000 people who don’t even know you exist,” she said.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
