This year, I had the honor of giving the commencement speech for University of Denver’s Disability Visibility graduation. Here it is!
Good morning. Good morning to our graduates, and to the friends, family, and chosen community who made it possible for you to be here today. I also want to give a big thank you to Student Disability Services, the Learning Effectiveness Program, the office of Civil Rights & Equal Opportunity—and a special thanks to Naomi for coordinating this lovely gathering.
Graduates, let me start by saying: You did it! You officially graduated from one of the top universities in the nation…in the very city where the modern disability rights movement was born. You should be immensely proud of this moment.
You did the work when it was hard.
You were vulnerable enough to ask for support when you needed it.
And from this day forward, you will always belong to the University of Denver alumni community.
I invite you to take in this moment with your body. Feel the energy in this room. Now try this: without looking up, see if you can feel how high the ceiling is from your head. See if you can feel where the light is coming into the room. See if you can feel where the exits are.
Now, see if you can feel a line between you and someone in this room who thinks you’re pretty great.
This is the first sense we have has infants – our WHERE sense – which tells us where our bodies are located in the world. Our WHERE sense scans for safety and connection. Take a moment to soak up all the respect you deserve for the massive journey you’ve taken — from that initial WHERE sense when you could only move your head as an infant — to sitting here today as graduates.
To understand what it means for me to have the honor of speaking to you today, I want to share a bit of my own journey. On the outside, I look able-bodied. I’m a social worker, so my entire career is dedicated to advocating for others. But as Jill, I am actually quite new to admitting in public that I live with a disability.
I grew up in a small town in Washington State. My 8th-grade graduating class had exactly eight people. When I moved on to the public high school, I was suddenly thrown into a sea of 1,600 kids. I was entirely out of my depth. I actually wrote my locker combination on my ankle because I was terrified I’d forget it.
It was 1992. And my family didn’t watch MTV so I had pretty much missed the culture of the 80s. When Kurt Cobain died and my classmates were weeping in the hallways, I had no idea who he even was. I had never listened to Nirvana.
That was the first time I felt that isolating gut-punch of “Oh shoot, I’m ‘that girl.’ I had missed out on so many of the things that everyone else seemed to know.
Shortly after, I was nominated to go to a leadership conference called Girls’ State. For an entire week, a bunch of young women set up a mock government, and everyone had to run for office. This meant making signs with catchy phrases so people would remember us.
Someone asked my last name, and I told them: EELKEMA. Now, nothing rhymes with Eelkema. Then one girl burst out, “You should write EELKEMAS for ENEMAS!” Everyone laughed. I had absolutely no idea what an enema was. Thankfully, another girl said, “Ewww,” so I figured out it wasn’t a good thing and looked it up when I got home. But at that exact moment, there was that feeling again. I was “that girl” who didn’t know the things everyone else seemed to know.
To cope with not knowing who I was, I pushed myself relentlessly. In college, I was voted “Most likely to work in a gas station after graduation”. I actually had learned to weld on a dare by my Dad but honestly, I thought maybe I could get edgy enough if I worked in the trades.
Then, I tried the sciences, then a religion major, then public art installation. In the end, I did what all of us do when we don’t know what we want to do….I got an English major. And what do you do with an English major? I went on to sell bible software. True story.
But I was running away from what I didn’t want to be, terrified of where I would land.
I was so used to saying what I was not, that I never gave myself permission to say: This is who I am.
Did you know that it is a normal developmental stage to first say what we are not? We define ourselves first by saying, I’m not you. It’s how we form our identity. It’s the response I had when a career counselor suggested that I become a social worker – um, maybe not.
But around high school age and continuing from there, we start telling others – family especially – that we aren’t going to be like them. It’s that wrestle-y, angsty feeling of doing everything you can to avoid what you don’t want to be (or think you are), compounded by the anxiety of not knowing where you will actually land.
Maybe some of you are sitting in that exact place today.
In therapy, we call this an “identity discrepancy.” It’s where who you are in your head doesn’t match what the world sees, what it asks of you, or even your own dreams of who you think you should be. It feels like a thick rubber band stretching tightly between those two versions of yourself. Big life transitions (like graduating college) stretch that rubber band to its limit. The tension causes real discomfort.
So, how do we keep the rubber band from breaking? How do we find our way back to congruency, to feeling seen, celebrated, and like we truly belong with acceptance for exactly who we are?
You still with me?
My answer came through a series of crashes. In 2008, I was laid off from my job at the health department. Less than a month later, my partner moved away. I dropped out of my master’s program, and my roommate announced she was moving out. To top it all off, a car t-boned my truck, injuring both of my shoulders and ending my days as a long-distance runner.
My life question suddenly became: If I am not achieving… if I don’t have a job or if I’m not a student, who am I? Maybe you can relate.
Then, in 2022, I received devastating news: I was diagnosed with stage 3c colorectal cancer.
I endured radiation, chemotherapy, a temporary ileostomy bag after major surgery – and just when I got used to the ileostomy bag, they reversed it and put me back together. That’s when I found out that I was left with an invisible disability of random incontinence. And here I used to worry about not knowing who Kurt Cobain was.
When you go through a severe medical event, people constantly tell you how “strong” you are. But inside, you often just feel weak, angry, and impatient.
It reminded me of the classic children’s story, There’s a Monster at the End of this Book. Throughout the story, Grover begs you not to turn the page. He ties up ropes, builds brick walls, and panics because there is a monster coming. But when you finally turn the last page, Grover realizes he was the monster all along. Silly Grover. There was nothing to fear.
Living with a disability teaches you that you can survive the “monster” of your own fears. You learn to look at the parts of yourself you were ashamed of and realize: It’s just me. And I am okay.
That self-acceptance became my superpower—and I know it is yours, too. Each and every one of you in this room has had to face down a “monster” of some kind. You have all been “that guy” or “that girl” because of the unique challenges your disability has thrown your way. But look around. You made it.
You have also learned a truth that many people go thru their whole lives ignoring: you cannot do this life alone. You need community. You need people who wholeheartedly accept you—the ones who let you be “ugly” and cry, or vulnerable without judgment.
Our theme today is Seen, Celebrated, and Belonging. And let me tell you, you are in the perfect place to claim that theme.
You are graduating in Denver—the literal birthplace of the modern disability rights movement. Here’s a little history:
- It was here, in 1975, that the Atlantis Community was founded — a grassroots group who championed the belief that people with disabilities deserve to live where they want to out in the community.
- It was here in 1978 – right at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax – that the “Gang of 19” threw themselves out of their wheelchairs to block public buses until the city and RTD agreed to make the transit accessible. By 1982, Denver became “the first metropolitan region in the country to provide large-scale wheelchair-accessible buses.”
- It was in 1990 that an 8-year-old Denver girl named Jennifer climbed out of her wheelchair and pulled herself up the steps of the U.S. Capitol. This became the final push to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- It was here in 2002 that the Consumer Directed Attendant Support Services (CDASS) became part of the Medicaid waiver programs: an option that empowers individuals with disabilities to hire, fire, train and manage their own care partners.
Today, this city boasts the Phamaly Theatre Company, the longest running US performance group made up of disabled artists, and businesses like BrewAbility that champion employment for adults with disabilities and who brew craft beer. You are walking in the footsteps of giants. You belong to a history that is fierce, smart, funny, and profoundly powerful.
Graduates, hang that diploma on your wall and know that you have earned a vital, permanent place in this world. What you invested to get here cannot be broken, and it cannot be worn out.
As you step into this next chapter, the rubber band of identity is going to stretch again. Be gentle with the parts of yourself that feel excited, shaky, and hopeful. Stay congruent with yourselves. Don’t be afraid to say, “I need to take a little time for me.”
Remember this: The best way to build self-esteem is by doing things that you find esteemable. It comes from standing in your truth and naming who you are with love. That is how you make friends with the shaky parts of yourself. When you can identify them, they all get to hang out together instead of being alone.
That is the true meaning of belonging. You belong here today with all of your beautiful, brilliant, awkward, and shaky parts. All of them. Maybe one of your parts can even hang out with me later and finally tell me all about Kurt Cobain.
Congratulations, Class of 2026. You are going to do great.
