I have always wondered
why you spell your name Arday.
Because here in Ghana,
many of my uncles who carry that name
spell it Addy.

But today,
I realise that perhaps
the spelling was the least important thing about you.

What mattered
was the life you lived.
When I first read that you were autistic
and that you were a professor,
I stopped for a moment and said:

Not because autism should make anyone extraordinary.
But because you made people like me look at our so-called disabilities differently.

I am dyslexic.
And somehow,
your journey made me feel
that perhaps disability was never meant to be a prison.

Maybe it was never meant to be a label
stuck to our foreheads
telling the world what we cannot do.

You reminded me
that
we can still dream.
We can still work.
We can still rise.
We can still live full,
meaningful lives—

whatever “normal” is supposed to mean.

But what truly amazed me
was when I read those words:
Professor Jason Arday.

I smiled.
And I said:
“Well done, my brother.”
Because you had broken
another piece of that glass ceiling.

Not just for yourself.
But for people living with disabilities
who have spent years being told,
directly
or indirectly:

Stay in the shadows.
Know your limitations.
Don’t dream too loudly.
Don’t come too close to the light.

And then I heard about the struggles.
The questions.
The scrutiny.
The attempts to strip you down,
to expose every weakness,
to make you feel less than the man you had fought so hard to become.

And I asked myself:
Why?
Why do we sometimes hound the very people
who have already fought so hard
just to be seen?

Why do we demand perfection
from people who have had to fight
twice as hard
just to get through the door?

And perhaps that is why
so many of us remain hidden.
We are afraid of the spotlight.
Afraid that if we step forward,
someone will try to tear us apart.

So we stay quiet.
We stay behind the curtain.
We become invisible.

But Jason…
You stepped into the light.
You stood there.
You carried your story.
You carried your struggles.
And you showed us
that disability does not have to be the end of the story.

Sometimes…
it is only the beginning.

My brother,
you fought a good fight.
You broke barriers.
You opened doors.
You gave people like us
a reason to believe
that the walls around us
can be broken.

So today,
I do not mourn only the man you were.
I celebrate
the courage you represented.

I celebrate the doors you opened.
I celebrate the people
who will walk through those doors
because you dared to stand there first.

Rest well, Jason.
You have done your part.
And for those of us still walking this difficult road…

we will carry the light forward.

Rest in peace
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