It’s raining and cold. We have all had beans on toast for
breakfast. A real comfort food. It was nice to share a table with our Son for a
change. With his work it’s rare these days.
I was saying to Hub I feel so sad and bad that we can’t just
drop him off near where he works outside the door and pick him up tonight. As he
has to park up and walk for fifteen minutes. This is when parents who are blind
feel so hopeless. I know we are good parents in fact I feel I have been a
better parent than most of my sighted friends have been to their children, but
at the same time, I hear of how they have taken the kids somewhere they needed
to go picked them up and so on. Hub and I have had to watch our Son when he was
younger before he could drive struggle to get somewhere or if he goes out for a
meal and is going to have a couple of drinks, then he gets a taxi. If I could
see, I could take him.
When he was learning to drive, again, I couldn’t teach him
to do that. Thank God for our friend Di who gave him the best crash course for
want of a better word the day before his test. And Hub who paid for lessons for
him as he felt bad that he couldn’t take him out.
Some say it makes him a better person, more independent and
that is true, but sometimes we can get exhausted in life by having too many
lessons.
I have written before about how at school he was punished because
on the board in his class was his name saying it was his turn to bring in
biscuits. All the parents checked when
it was their turn. My son was three. It was nursery school. I asked the teachers
so many times to please just tell me? Or email me? No, they didn’t. so, because
of this, my Son was told off and forbidden from having his biscuit and juice
that day. He would come home and tell me and my heart would break for him. He was
tiny a baby. And as he got older, all the parents in the class on parent day
would be looking through their children’s work, my Son had to turn the pages
telling me of all his work. Bless him he used to take my finger and push it on
the paper. Some years later I asked him why he did that, he told me it was
because he thought I saw through my fingers. Teaching him to write? Oh, that was hell for
me. I mean, I knew what letters looked like, as I had sight, but none at that
point and now, so how does one do this? I used to have to tell him only by
saying things like for a capital A, a triangle with a stick through the middle.
Or, up down and across. I mean, how difficult and confusing must that have been
for a four-year-old? I so badly needed my Mum at that point to help, but sadly
long by then she was dancing with the angels.
And when he would come home from school and tell me he
needed to wear yellow the next day if he had nothing yellow? How where would I get
it? And he had to make a robot for the next day too. Just awful and it didn’t
help that the teachers were so very unhelpful or understanding. I pray it’s
changed now I know one friend who still has trouble even getting letters sent
to her via email. They still send out print to her about her daughter. I think
if you have a child who is blind then life is OK but for a parent who is blind,
horrid.
But we can love our children spend so much time with them
and even show them things in life that no other child may see because we as blind
people have learned that you need to live for today and appreciate everything
taking nothing for granted. Thankfully Hub and I have been able to do a lot for
our Son we are fortunate. But the simple things, sadly not. I just hope to
goodness that by the time our Grand children come along, there is a cure and no
such thing as blindness. Retinitis Pigmentosa has a lot of research going on
but it’s so very slow. They say it’s down to money, but is it all to do with
that? I just wish I knew of who is doing
the research and see how passionate they really are. I hope they are and I hope
one day my blogs are telling you just what I have seen that day and what I think
of it.
RP really does affect an immediate family. Our Son for sure.
Having said that, looking at his life and his girlfriends, he has had a much
more privileged life and her parents can see.
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