STILL LEARNING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

STILL LEARNING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

 

 

I have lived as a partially sighted person all my life, have been around totally blind people throughout my life, and have even met people who became blind in adulthood. Just imagine if at some point in your day your vision was to disappear totally without warning, or you had been diagnosed with an eye condition which would surely end in blindness. I know, you can’t possibly imagine such a thing and can’t even pretend to think of it, yet it does happen occasionally to some very fine people such as yourselves, and here’s a newsflash:  The government isn’t standing by to hand you a check and whisper in your ear that everything will be all right. 

Since working with a very few individuals who were unfortunate enough to have this happen in their adult lives, I am finding myself challenged by their enthusiasm and determination to pick up the pieces and keep going.

Often you see portrayed on TV a blind person such as this, who has accomplished major breakthroughs and seemingly impossible feats. I know some of those people and indeed they are ones who challenge me because they can leave me standing still while they go on to accomplish things that never even occurred to my mind. I salute them as they pass.

Then there are those folks who become totally dependent on others because it’s just too hard. This week I met one in the doctor’s office, yet it was not the blind person so much that melted my heart as it was the extreme patience of the lady who was willing to be his helper. Had I met him earlier in my life somehow I can see myself moving over to sit beside him and give him information about places to call for help, and I still would have asked him if he knew about the Library for the Blind if I would have had the chance. Once when I was a teenager Mom and I were shopping in Lexington and there was a blind man on the corner banging on a tin cup as he announced to the world that he was blind and needed money. Mama would not let me go down the street toward that man because she knew I was ready to grab his cup and tell everybody to stop giving him money because there were things he could do besides begging.

We once had a man in Raleigh who would walk by himself into a restaurant, stop at the door with his cane in-hand and announce “Can anybody please help me;” I’m blind.” Well, obviously they could tell that he was blind, but since losing more of my vision now I can certainly understand how he probably felt at times. I mean, I have actually walked from the sunshine into a restaurant and could see absolutely nothing in the darkened atmosphere. People don’t immediately rush up to help and you don’t always know if it’s because they’re occupied with something or is there anybody there anyway.

 Now, one of the saddest things I have run into lately are those people who have lost their vision as prominent middle-aged individuals, who do not know Braille and because of medical conditions may not be able to learn it because of their diminished sense of touch. They never learned to type. They find themselves illiterate, which makes it harder to learn new things. At first I almost saw those people the way I know some people have seen me … in a pitiful sort of way. All my life the scripture where Jesus says that if a blind man leads a blind man they both fall into the ditch has given me pause to frown, until now, and that’s because I realize that at times it probably takes a blind man to pull another blind man out of that ditch. So for all you blind people who have gone into teaching, rehab, social work, or the many occupations and organizations that help other blind people find their way, I hope you know how special you are.

We all come in contact with different situations as we live and as changes keep occurring we find ourselves trying to learn as we go. But just for a moment or two, try closing your eyes and think of a task you need to do, excluding driving of course.  It just may be that a blind person might need to show you how to complete that task.  

In this world of technology, blind people could be left in the dust, lock themselves behind closed doors and turn into couch potatoes, if not for that special technology out there that talks. Even though there is not such a thing as an app that makes someone see, there are apps that can tell blind people things they need to know, such as tell what color you have on, describe a picture, read printed materials, tell you where you are, read a book, type a document, call your friends, do calculations, read emails, make calls, schedule meetings, and on and on and on. Even though this is not a commercial for Apple or Google or the many companies that do such things for the blind, it really is like a blind person taking hold of a digital hand.

However, it is not the digital hand that will lead the circumstances of lost vision into their new existence but it’s the human hand that reaches out with help, not pity, that serves to lead us all forward, no matter what the conditions in our lives may be.