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Friday, 15 April 2016

DIARY OF A BLIND AND SIGHTED BRIDE


My blog at this crazy time in the morning is about my weddings as a sighted bride, and a blind bride. I have been married twice so my wedding days with and without sight.

 

My first wedding day, I could see. I was a young teenager. Everything was planned for me. Everything was chosen for me. I went through the motions for the preparation and the actual day.

 

My second wedding day to my now Husband, we planned. I chose everything apart from the best man and Hub picked our Son, who was twelve at the time. He gave the best speech too. Read it with such humour and it was so well read without nerves considering his age.

 

My first wedding day was with the media, second not. First the guests like everything was again picked for me, rather than what I wanted

 

I was a baby looking back. I had a lot of life’s experience as had to grow up very fast in my life, but still a baby, and emotions were of a child an yet I was to marry a man who was nine years my senior.

 

My second wedding/marriage, my Hub was the same age as myself. A few months younger as he insists on reminding me…

 

My first wedding day was full of what has to be, my second, what can be.

 

My first wedding day, I even washed my bridesmaid’s hair and got myself ready, my second, I was pampered and treat so well thanks to my now Hub. I picked my own dress with the help of my friend Julie. First wedding, I wore a beautiful dress but again I remember it was a dress that was just there at the right time of me needing a dress. and when I looked back on my photographs, I looked like a little girl dressing up as a bride, didn’t feel special at all. I was weak and so scared. Second marriage, my second wedding day, I felt like a princess. I owned the world and I was on a cloud floating with pure joy.

 

Everyone with the exception of one person, was wanted there welcome and we were honoured that they were joining us for such an eventful day.

 

My first wedding day, I could see my soon to be Husband as I walked towards him. I had sight. My second, I was blind. I didn’t see my now Hub.

 

I saw my first wedding dress. Second, no, but to me, in my head at least, my dress was stunning. Flowers were kindly made by my much loved Mother in law. Our wedding cake was given to us by my Mother in law too and it was so special. I still have the sugar flowers from that cake, we will have been married six years in a few months. The sugar flowers are still fine, I do wonder how long they will last each time I go to my display unit in my kitchen and blow off the dust.

 

I don’t remember anything about my first wedding cake, nothing at all. I remember posing for a picture as we cut the cake, but the rest is a misty memory of everything but the cake.

 

My first wedding day, I could see what I looked like in the mirror. My second not. I didn’t have any idea what I looked like but felt a million dollars, I never expected to feel that way, as now if I get dressed up to go anywhere, I do get really down that I can’t see myself through the mirror. I don’t know what my hair looks like, or if I need to start to wear more make up?

 

But on our wedding day, Hub and mine, I didn’t see my make up, but felt more glamorous than what I did 25 years earlier when I married for the first time with sight.

 

I couldn’t see the guests of my second wedding day, but as I said, most of them in fact all but one, were all there because they were loved. My first wedding, I could see my guests, but were they my guests? Most of them were there by default. Most of them I had never seen in my life and would not see again after that day.

 

My first wedding day, I felt as that was the end of my future, my second wedding day, I hoped that it would be the start of a fantastic future.

 

I don’t know what I looked like on our wedding day when I married my now husband, and I wonder if I ever will know? Will I ever be able to see our wedding photographs? If there is a miracle, and I do see our pictures, will I be disillusioned? As will my dreams of what I looked like in my mind be shattered? Dare I even look?

 

In my mind on my second wedding day, I knew I was marrying a handsome man who I was totally in love with. I last saw my now husband when we were twelve. Our wedding day, we were in our early forties. So in reality, what did my now Hub look like?

 

 My first wedding, was different. I knew what he looked like. I knew what I looked like. I knew how I felt. I would be a dutiful wife and very loyal, and I was for 23 years. I in those 23 years was proposed to twice and asked out by four men, but never once did I cheat on my ex. I gave him all I had and I felt like I had nothing left to give. Then I met with my now Husband both of us blind, and we fell into each other’s arms in a dream of absolute love and romance. How would I cope? I had a sighted Husband before, and now a blind husband.

 

Well we have so many days to day challenges and only each other to battle through them with each other’s help we get by. Some days it is like we exist. But we have one thing that is very important and that is love. I’m a very patient person too so will wait a long time before change. My next change will be sight and some days like today, I do wonder if I will ever get sight in my life time.

 

May be I will never see my Husband. I will always remember my first Husband. Even now after eighteen years since I could see, I still remember him clearly but my now Husband? I remember the little boy but have put the man I know him to be in my memory bank. A jigsaw trying to put the pieces together to form his face, to make it looke that bit older from when I saw him last.

 

My Husband has never been able to see so has no idea what I looked like, yes, people can describe me, but they are words that mean nothing. Blond hair blue eyes? Those colours mean nothing at all. So blue, the sky is blue? And? What is blue? He has never seen, colours are irrelevant. Features are words, so what does he see in me? Well, I ask myself that all of the time, he tells me what he thinks of me and why he feels what he does about me. And me being me, I just think he is being kind. I find it difficult believing in myself enough to believe that anyone would love me or even care for me especially when he has never seen me?

 

But sight, my second wedding day was far better than my first one, my first one with sight. So those of you who are planning on your wedding and in fear that you won’t be able to see by your big day comes, just know that one of the happiest days of my life, may be the, happiest day, was my wedding day without any vision.

 

If I could see, what difference would my wedding day have meant, the second one? May be more stress as I would look in the mirror and perhaps not like what I saw. As it was, I felt so right. If I could have seen, I may not have liked my hair, but as the hair dresser styled it, it felt so lovely. The girls fussed over me as I had make up put on me by professionals, so I felt so good. If I could see, I may not like the colours I picked, they may not have looked as good in real life as they did in my mind. I chose golds and rose pinks. I asked the girl to put mascara on me, something I never wear. I asked for brown, as I’m blond so didn’t think that black would look good. I then asked her to edge my lashes with gold. She said she didn’t know what that would look like as she has never done that before. She put the gold on the tips of my lashes and stepped back. Asked for one of her colleagues to come an look. I thought, oh no, but the other girl said wow it’s stunning and both girls agreed that they would use those colours from then on. So again, my imagination. And again, did it look as good in real life, well, in the sighted life? As it did in my blind imagination? Who knows, maybe I walked towards my love looking like a clown, smile, one thing for sure, if I had of done, he wouldn’t have known.  

 

Every few days, I dust our wedding picture that hangs above our mantel piece and to me it represents such  a lot of emotions  it feels like a sheet of glass, and obviously I see nothing, but, it represents so much. Power love life and new beginnings. As does the memory of my wedding as a blind bride.

 

A groom to be said to me some time back. He was really depressed that he wouldn’t see his bride walking towards him. I told him, he would know she was coming by the music.  He would smell her perfume as she approached him. His heart would be bursting with pride and over flowing with love. She would be in his heart and mind and as her fingertips gently touched his during the ceremony, his stomach would be doing summersaults with happiness. You don’t look at love, you feel it. You look at a beautiful person on the outside, but you feel the beauty within inside your heart and soul. True love doesn’t need sight.

 

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