PAPA, IT'S LIKE THIS!

I’m back, just had a thought as I did what I did this morning, as I did what I have done so many times before. One of those mornings you know? When you get up, get a shower, clean your teeth, put on some clothes, brush your hair, and put out your hand to find your glasses?

Yes, exactly, glasses?

I don’t wear them, don’t need them, wish I did, but don’t. It has been almost fifteen years since I went blind, fifteen years since I wore glasses, and even then I was so vain, I didn’t wear them in public.

What is it about the brain, which tells you, you need to look for your glasses? After so long?

How do I feel when reality kicks in? Well nowhere near as bad as I felt before I was reunited with my now Hub.

I used to open my draw where they were kept after my sight loss, and weep.

Holding them, pathetically. Praying, begging, and pleading for someone on the other side, to guide

Some scientist on earth, to find a cure?

It was as though being kicked in the stomach by a horse.

A feeling of grief, of absolute loss.

That went on for years, holding onto hope, one day I may need those glasses again?

I never did and I never will.

I’m not giving up on the dream or wish to see? Oh, no, just if you think about it, what good would those lenses be to me ever again?

My eyes will never return to that exact way of seeing.

My poor hub was made to wear glasses as a baby, yes a one year old. Stupid people thought by making him look through lenses; he would start to react to them?

His Dad still has those tiny baby glasses, with the little head strap on them.

They look like they should fit a doll.

When my Father in law showed me them, my heart broke.

To have a blind child, must kill a parent.

As specially ones who just don’t know anything about the blind world.

There are two types of parents.

 Let’s not be sexist and say Papa Greg, and Papa Steve.

Papa Greg has his daughter and finds out she is going blind, he at once wraps her in cotton wool. He protects her from the outside world. She lives in her palace. In the home of loving parents. She has every toy known to man in the house, none of them are accessible of course, because he knows nothing at all about blindness and what is available. He is handed paperwork from the authorities, but what is paperwork when going through terrifying traumatic tribulation?

No longer will he read his daughter bed time stories, as he cannot stand reading as she never will be able to read.

No  longer is she involved with family board games, as his little Princess can’t play them.

She is sent to a school for sighted children where there are no experts in the field of sight loss, so the little girls education, is forgotten about.

Papa Greg, knows his Princess is so beautiful, she will take a Husband easily and never need to work and if she doesn’t manage to marry, he will look after her, until he and his wife die, after then? She will go to a home.

How will the girl feel in life?

Lost, left behind, worthless, hopeless, depressed forever and just waiting to die!

Then there is Papa Steve. He has just found out, his little girl is going blind. He talks to other parents of blind children, joins all the groups possible, his tears turn into strength. He finds books to read to his daughter that has tactile pictures in and gets Braille and tactile flash cards. Him and his wife spend time when the daughter is not with them, to blind fold themselves one at a time, pours out a jug of water into a glass, looks for toothpaste, shampoo and tries to find the difference between shower gel and other products in the bathroom. He buys products for the kitchen that are easily identified. They listen to their surroundings. Look at accessibility around their airier, they need to move where the future is going to be easy for their daughter. Public transport, shops, walks, entertainment and children their daughter’s age. A school which will offer Braille and not just one class per week. A school unlike Papa Greg’s daughter goes to, where by his little girl is kept in at play times, as the little girl may get knocked over?

If she gets knocked over, she will stand up again and for every  uncaring child, there are kind ones. If you don’t have knocks in the playground, you don’t know how to cope with knocks later on in life.

Papa Steve buys a bike for his daughter. He lets her ride it. He stands back whilst she rides freely down a quiet avenue.

He takes her ice skating, to the theatre and cinema and explains what is happening on screen/stage.

He looks at theatres / cinemas that have audio activation.

He thinks about the daughter’s future, college, University.

Blind is not  always black in the Papa Steve household, days of grey, but weeks of red and months of bright yellow, which will lead to years of rainbows.

Papa Steve’s daughter will find her pot of gold, as she becomes a secretary, or a solicitor. A teacher or a manager. A wife and Mother.

What will Papa Steve’s daughter have in life?

She will live. She will go to sleep at nights feeling proud. Useful. Helpful and  happy.

Yes she will have days when she feels like she can’t go on; yes she will have her recurrent nightmares of being stuck in a house fire, not knowing how to get out.

 She will never see her Husband’s warm loving looks or new born baby’s face, this is why we need a cure, but also more parents like Papa Steve and more help for Papa Greg and all those like him.

With love