SMILES FOR A MONDAY

 

 

You remember that your favorite show comes on at 7 PM so you hurry home, fix your dinner and sit down to relax, only to learn there’s an extended news bulletin instead.

 

Have you ever really pinched yourself to see if you were awake.

 

Does anybody know of a bakery that delivers? I’m tired of ordering pizza just so I can order the brownie for dessert.

 

Have you ever seen someone fall and noticed the first thing they did was look to see who was watching? Or, maybe you were the one that fell. As you get older the first thing you might think about if you fall is:  Is there somebody to help me up?  Or … are you the one watching.

 

Want to know what’s a real pet peeve for a blind person? You follow all the crazy links on facebook to find a video you really want to know  about. Finally you hit all the links and you’re there but … the video has no words.

 

Do you remember the Lone Ranger? There are two things that I have always wondered about:  One is why he wears a mask and two is where does he get money to buy those silver bullets.

 

Have you ever been by yourself when you really laughed out loud about something you saw, read or heard? Wouldn’t it be cool if a room full of people who laughed like that would be recorded and played instead of that mechanical laughter you hear on TV, or am I the only one who feels that laughing is so artificial? Yet I wonder if a sitcom would even exist without it.

 

Then there are what we call the soaps? Have you ever turned one on after not watching it for more than ten  years and found out that some characters had been replaced but the plot hadn’t.

 

If you are over the age of fifty you may have noticed … you’re cleaning a sink and suddenly the words:  “Once in every week Drain-O in every drain,” pop in your memory from a long-ago commercial, or maybe Tony the Tiger says “They’re great!” every time you pass Frosted Flakes in the grocery store.

 

Have you ever noticed that something you may have done in the past was not fun, but the memory of having done it later brings a happy memory to your heart? … like shelling peas with grandma who is no longer there, or walking to school in the snow?

 

Is it still Monday?

 

 

 

You remember that your favorite show comes on at 7 PM so you hurry home, fix your dinner and sit down to relax, only to learn there’s an extended news bulletin instead.

 

Have you ever really pinched yourself to see if you were awake.

 

Does anybody know of a bakery that delivers? I’m tired of ordering pizza just so I can order the brownie for dessert.

 

Have you ever seen someone fall and noticed the first thing they did was look to see who was watching? Or, maybe you were the one that fell. As you get older the first thing you might think about if you fall is:  Is there somebody to help me up?  Or … are you the one watching.

 

Want to know what’s a real pet peeve for a blind person? You follow all the crazy links on facebook to find a video you really want to know  about. Finally you hit all the links and you’re there but … the video has no words.

 

Do you remember the Lone Ranger? There are two things that I have always wondered about:  One is why he wears a mask and two is where does he get money to buy those silver bullets.

 

Have you ever been by yourself when you really laughed out loud about something you saw, read or heard? Wouldn’t it be cool if a room full of people who laughed like that would be recorded and played instead of that mechanical laughter you hear on TV, or am I the only one who feels that laughing is so artificial? Yet I wonder if a sitcom would even exist without it.

 

Then there are what we call the soaps? Have you ever turned one on after not watching it for more than ten  years and found out that some characters had been replaced but the plot hadn’t.

 

If you are over the age of fifty you may have noticed … you’re cleaning a sink and suddenly the words:  “Once in every week Drain-O in every drain,” pop in your memory from a long-ago commercial, or maybe Tony the Tiger says “They’re great!” every time you pass Frosted Flakes in the grocery store.

 

Have you ever noticed that something you may have done in the past was not fun, but the memory of having done it later brings a happy memory to your heart? … like shelling peas with grandma who is no longer there, or walking to school in the snow?

 

Is it still Monday?

 

I DID IT AGAIN!

I did it again

 

 

For my New Year’s resolution this year I have been working and praying hard that I would stop giving people blunt and unkind answers. In spite of everything, it seems I do this more than ever. Immediately I catch myself after it is done, but I need to catch myself before it is done.

 

This morning a knock on my door aroused me from my computer. I am expecting company and was disappointed when a man stood on my front porch instead. “You know who is your present area representative,” he asked, evidently handing me a card as he spoke. My first response was “What?” He pushed the card into my hand as he said “You can read it here on this card.” 

 

I said:  “Sir, I can’t read the card but I know who my representative is.

 

He said:  Does someone take you to vote?”

 

I answered:  “No worries, I do always vote.”

 

Poor guy at a loss for words said “Well you put this where somebody can read it for you so you can remember to vote and who to vote for.”

 

To which I bluntly answered:  “OH, I’m just blind, not dumb.”

 

Here I think I am writing a blog to help sighted people understand blindness and for us to yield to mistakes people make and help them understand. A man just left my door probably terribly embarrassed who may avoid blind people forever. Why didn’t I ask something intelligent like:  “Are you my representative?” Sometimes I really act dumb. So, all you sighted folks, give us more than one chance to prove we really are nice people … most of the time.

 

 

 

 

GOING FORWARD

Just last week I mentioned some of those blind people who reach what seems like impossible feats. Today I attended a program where the speaker was Lex Gillette, a Paralympian who is blind. Someone asked him what was his longest jump, and I lost my breath when he said 22.9 feet and his hope was to reach 24 feet.

www.nbcolympics.com/video/lex-gillette-how-long-jump-while-blindCached

 

Just yesterday I met a lady in her fifties who is still alive after several brain surgeries for four large brain aneurysms and two strokes, who has just recently parked her car forever and is learning how to use an iPhone as a blind person. I decided to play my last blog for her just to try to make her realize so many people have their hands out to help her and encourage her as she encourages others, kind of like those people in Texas this week. She immediately stopped crying and picked up her phone.

 

Then I thought about myself and relived my tiny pathetic victory on Friday. It was a perfect walking day, partly cloudy, my favorite lighting for walking. I needed to go to the drug store for a prescription, but all I could think of was that one precarious street I would have to cross. I called a friend hoping she was going out and I could tag along. She was already gone. Finally, after about an hour of self talk I harnessed Vivi and started on my walk, less than a mile to get there. The distance was not the problem, the street loomed large in my mind. I guess if I were Lex Gillette I could just take a running start and jump the thing. Vivi and I began our walk in our usual speed until suddenly I realized I was short of breath, gasping a bit, heart racing and sweat beads on my forehead. My legs felt weak and even my shoulders felt tight and my brain felt stupid because it realized this was a full-blown panic attack. I turned around to go home but Vivi was stubborn and sat down on the sidewalk like she planned to have a sit-in. So I took a very deep breath, said a very urgent prayer and headed for Wall Greens. Amazingly, once we got to the street the fear went away. I remembered all the times I had sat in a cab waiting almost 5 minutes to turn onto that street so I knew I had a very long time to cross and unless someone ran the light we would be fine. What had I been afraid of anyway? Then I remembered, I still had to walk back home.

After getting the prescription and the pneumonia shot I had been putting off for two years my friend called to ask if I still needed a ride. I couldn’t believe I told her no. Somehow I hoped she would show up anyway, but she took me at my word so off we went. This time I was confident as we began crossing the street knowing that Vivi would stop on a dime should someone turn right on red in front of us. No one did, but just as we got in the middle of the 6-lane crossing a horn began a sustaining blowing as some young men started whistling and barking trying to distract Vivi. This has happened before and is a cruel thing for people to do, yet it happens. Vivi did not become distracted one bit, partly because she knows better, and partly because she hopes to get a small kibble once we get to the other side at that particular spot. She got one.

 

Now I could write a pretty long blurb about today when they were repaving my street and I needed to get away. Vivi and I walked on the grass, going behind the mailboxes. Just as we got behind them both the garbage trucks and the recycle trucks stopped and all I could hear was motors and glass falling into trucks one bin after another. I was on unfamiliar territory so couldn’t turn around and didn’t know exactly where those trucks were if I went forward. That is when you realize why you got a guidedog.

 

Tomorrow I think I may just take a break and stay home and play my full 88-key keyboard that a friend gave me about a month ago. She just couldn’t seem to stand the fact that I did not have a keyboard and she was not happy until I finally agreed to accept her more than generous gift. With so much happening this summer I had really not planned to ever play music again. Then, just like the lady picked up her iPhone yesterday, and just like Lex Gillette being willing to use his gift to jump almost 23 feet, I can hardly wait to drown myself in music … tomorrow. Maybe I can write a song about small and large victories and the good that still lives inside people in our world.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

STILL LEARNING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

ONE BLIND DAY

Occasionally in life there comes along one day in which things happen or things people have said gang up in your brain and pour down the rain. This is that day for me. Even though I try to make my blog optimistic and have answers for most of the problems that can surround a blind individual, at times the brain just is not willing to “see” that optimism.

This day started out with my canceling a cab ride because I realized they had sent a vehicle that could not get close enough to the door to pick me up. “Surely there are other doors,” you say, and you’d be right. However, a sighted person would not be willing one bit to walk the distance in this large building to the next available exit.

Then I sent an email to a city manager of a city that has no transportation available unless you drive a car. This has been an on-going rub in my life as my mom lives in that town and for years my family and friends have driven the one hundred miles so I could see her occasionally. She’s just about ninety-seven now and I’m just about seventy-four, one day away anyway for me. Though I can never express enough appreciation for those who have driven me those hundred miles, who have never complained, and even acted like they enjoyed it, there’s this yearning in my heart to be independent enough to at least be able to touch down in my own childhood hometown. I can’t afford a private plane, so here I sit while Mom moves into a care facility, and I’m helpless to be able to reach her. When I was a child my parents drove a hundred miles to the NC State School for the Blind, where they dropped me off, knowing that they were not permitted to reach me very often as well. So the tables have turned and perhaps I know just a little bit of what my parents must have felt in those days.

So, Monday morning, let’s clean. Let’s start with the ceiling fan someone told me was dirty. Do I like to be told when I need to clean things? Sort of, but I’m only five feet tall and when I climbed on the stepping stool ladder (which I shouldn’t be climbing on in the first place) I found I couldn’t reach the fan even from the top. Next time I’ll ask that person who was tall enough to see the dirt to do it.

Another someone told me there were spider webs around my chandelier, and suggested I ask someone to knock them down for me. I asked three different people who said they definitely would be willing to do that … when they had a chance … six months ago.

The right thing for me to do with this is let it go, and I am sure there’s a lesson here I’m supposed to learn about that. However, I’m going to climb back on that stool, dust mop and cleaning cloth in hand, and fight with those spiders.

As I sit here staring at the other projects I have begun, I must wonder … is there not some better way to hang a shower curtain after you’ve washed it other than those little stupid rings? Maybe they’ve changed in the last several years and I just don’t know?

So this is just one of those days when, instead of shrugging things off and remembering how truly blessed I am, I eat almost a quart of butter pecan ice-cream. Now do I feel better? Yes, as a matter of fact I do. No matter the problems, I live in the land of milk and honey … and butter pecan ice-cream.

 

 

 

 

 

FOUR-DAY DIARY

 

One morning I thought how secure it would make me feel to just sit down and let the world go by. My knee wouldn’t hurt, my ankle wouldn’t hurt with a shoe over the top where it has been broken twice, no painful plantar fasciitis as I walk. I wouldn’t need to worry about traffic, falling up or down steps, knowing people were staring to watch my dog work, myself speaking to someone who was on their phone, or doing something weird like wearing Christmas tree earrings for Easter, which I unknowingly did this year.

Aside from all that, how do you train a helper in the store not to keep handing you dresses and/or anything else you don’t like instead of taking you to your size and disappearing until you call them or end up at the register.

It would be cool to walk to the side of a pool knowing those already in the water were not holding their breath. Frankly sometimes I’m holding my breath too just in case they are right and I plunge right on in.

Yes, I could just be a little old grandma sitting on my front porch with my dog staring at the neighborhood. Don’t feel bad, I do that quite often, and especially with coffee and I enjoy very much being the little old grandma on the front porch.

This particular morning Vivi and I had our front porch solitude in the middle of the active neighborhood. She had her usual walk and I let her stop for just a few sniffs along the way.

So far this week the following incidences have occurred:

ON Monday The lady at the Dress Barn told me I needed a 2X in that blouse instead of just a large. I am glad she was not around when I found out she was correct. It was just the way the thing was made, right?

Fashion aside, I ordered lunch at Chick-fil-A and asked the lady to please help me find a table. That worked fine until the lady figured I couldn’t open my lunch boxes either.

Tuesday I went to the gym and as Vivi and I started toward the door to leave two young people were exercising on the carpet close to the machine I had just vacated. Vivi stopped and gave them a thorough licking since she figured they were in her territory.

Wednesday I went back to the mall to return the blouse.

I went into the shoe store and told Vivi to find a chair. She did and I sat down on a lady’s purse. My fault; I forgot to examine the chair first.

We passed some very young children while walking in the mall and one of them put a piece of candy in Vivi’s mouth. Before I could think I grabbed Vivi and stuck my hand in her mouth, then threw the candy across the mall.

 

And then?

While at the mall I went to the Hallmark Store and a lady offered to read the cards I needed for me. She laughed as much as I did as she read the funny ones.

I went into Pay Less shoe store just looking for some water shoes. That time the young lady and I were enjoying finding cute shoes in a size 3, laughing about the piece of candy when she accidentally knocked down an entire row of shoes from top to bottom. We were both laughing as I tried to help her pick them up and was putting red ones and green ones in the same box. I did find some cheap water shoes which work great, and at least my feet don’t need a 2X.

As I ate my lunch someone from my church from years back sat down and we had a nice visit.

 

It’s Still this week … Thursday.  I went to a gym for the first time. The lady was concerned about me going into the swimming pool, and frankly it being the first time so was I. However, Vivi laid down beside the pool right where I told her too and never moved until I came back to the place I left her. It was a great experience for both the lady, Kay, and me.

 

Now, why have I written this TLDR blog? If you don’t know what TLDR means just ask Siri. In summary, this blog means that experiencing the best things in life outweighs all the seemingly inconvenient ones. My ankle and knee don’t seem to hurt when I’m laughing. Seeing Vivi working at a mall or on a walk makes people smile. Someone wanting to open a box for a blind lady makes them feel like they have done something for someone else. Having a dog that knows what “find a chair” means is a super dog. Throwing candy across the mall turned out to be a teaching moment for a little one who will probably never stick something in a dog’s mouth again. Watching a dog lie quietly for 45 minutes while her owner swims inspired a doubting lady who couldn’t stop praising her.

 

I am grandma. I love my rocking chair, but even more I love life and maybe I just helped someone open their lunch box.