HOW I SEE

 

HOW I SEE

 

This little blog is just to bring you alongside me as days pass and things change.

 

Thursday morning my friend Teresa pulled up in front of my house. I saw something that looked almost white.  “What is that?” I asked Teresa. Finally we realized I was seeing the house next to mine. I was ecstatic about being able to see that house all the way from my parking space. “A great sight day,” I thought as we went inside.  

We stood in the kitchen talking as I put away frozen food. I heard her voice, knew exactly where she was standing, so why did I bump right into her?

 

I sat in the chair at the ophthalmologist’s office before taking the dreaded visual fields test.

Doctor:  How does your vision seem today?

Me:  I’m seeing ceiling fans.

Doctor:  Great!!!!

Me:  But there aren’t any.

 

The salad dressing bottle was full, so why was it not dropping onto my salad. The weight of the bottle suddenly felt a bit lighter in my hand as I understood that I was fixing to eat a salad swimming in Ranch. Dressing.

Vivi and I stood on the front porch, her harness in my hand. “Forward,” I commanded. She did not move. “Forward,” I said again a little more emphatically as I put one foot out front, just as my head banged against the square post right beside the front step.

Me and my shadow. Oops, that’s not a shadow. 

Have you ever watched one blind person trying to hand something to another blind person? Keep a sense of humor; it can be funny.

My family and sometimes friends love to go looking at Christmas lights, one of my favorite things. Now it excites me so much when I really do see some. “Look!”  I pointed, … just as it turned green. 

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.” Walking from outdoors to inside is like a dark hole. If not for Vivi.

 

Christi and I sat in a lobby. “How well do  you see?” someone asked me.

“Well, I know you’re there so that must be you I see a shadow of, only frankly you could just as well be a vase of flowers.”

“There is a vase of flowers on the table,” she said.   

Today that conversation could go like this:

“Can you see what’s on that table?”

“What table?” I’d wonder.

It was dark outside except I could see flashing lights and heard two motors from probable rescue vehicles turning into my cul-de-sac. Immediately my thoughts went to the older neighbor down the street and thought about her. Then I realized other people may be thinking it was this older lady down the street, me. Okay, rubber necking is not something that works for me. Is there such a thing as rubber earing? What happened you ask? To this day I have no idea. All I can tell you is I heard folks talking outside my window and laughing about whatever had happened. Well, that really would have been me had911 came the day my boiled eggs exploded to the ceiling.

 

Poor pitiful me.

One night over twenty-five years ago I fell and broke my wrist and my ankle. Not wanting to call and bother my children, I called a cab and then sat in the hospital emergency room for about three hours, admiring my ability to keep from screaming. Finally two casts later I called my cab to go back home with bottles of Percocet in my hand. It didn’t occur until I was indoors that my wrist and hand were in the cast and the pain killer was in a childproof bottle.

 

As I live and discover new things happening, my admiration for those totally blind girls and boys I went to school with grows by leaps and bounds. I suppose they always knew that when you stopped the vacuum to go answer the phone or anything, you’d best remember where you parked the vacuum. Maybe at my age it’ll help my brain stay active?

 

A few of my favorite things:   

Fire engine red and bright banana colored cars.

Cloudy days that even up the shadows.

Sunshine when I don’t have to walk facing it.

Digital pictures or photos put on canvas.

The way things move across my TV screen, whether I know what they are or not.

Music! Music! Music!

 

As I said above, this is just letting you walk beside my life through the changes and try to “see” life through my eyes as I experience new places.

Should I ever stumble, I believe God will just turn up the music.