You’re Blind! You Don’t Need Glasses!!

 It’s another beautiful day in the Caribbean.  A Cerulean sky plays host to a lone, slow moving, puffy white cloud.   Vibrantly, green Watapana trees are dancing their branches in the breeze to the tune of a yellow breasted Troupial singing sweetly outside my window.  Golden sunbeams cast an iridescent sheen on the bird’s blue-black wings and his eyes sparkle like Onyx when they catch the light. 

Nice paragraph, right?  I like it.  Clearly, I enjoy my own words…waxing poetic, if you will.  However, I don’t describe things to my son like that.  Not anymore, not for right now.  He’s 6 now, very smart for his age, but still only 6, and we are going through something these days.

Gabriel has become very aware of his blindness, and I find myself describing the world around him more casually to him than at any other time in the past.  Sometimes, I completely glaze over the landscape and focus on the things that are making noise, emitting an odor, or readily available for touching. The things he can appreciate.  Often these days, I find myself trying to downplay the beauty of the world surrounding us, to spare him from all that he’s missing.

 Since Gabriel was old enough to understand that the sounds coming out of my mouth were words, I have told him that he is blind because his eyes are broken, because he was born too soon.  (This is also a nice way to explain Retinopathy of Prematurity to someone who does not hold several advanced medical degrees.)  We got along fine that way for a long time.  I served as his eyes, describing the world around us and that’s just the way it was.  And now….   

Well, let me back up a little.

It started with a kid in his class who wears glasses.  And then Gabriel’s Father finally admitted that he is not as young as he used to be and decided to buy himself a pair of reading glasses before his squint lines became permanent.  Little Dude and I had a conversation in the beginning of the school year about eyes, their varying degrees of brokenness and corrective lenses.  It went like this:

G:  Hey, Mom.  There’s a kid in my class with glasses.

Me:  Oh, yeah?

G: Yeah, they’re cool glasses.  He has a strap in the back so they don’t fall off.  What are glasses for?

Me:  Well, you know how your eyes are completely broken?  Some people’s eyes are just a little broken. They can see but they can’t see well, so they use the glasses to help them see the way they’re supposed to.

G: What do you mean, they don’t see well.

So, naturally, I launched into a lecture on various eye ailments, including - but not limited to: Nearsightedness, Farsightedness, Stigmatisms, Macular Degeneration and Lazy eyes.  When asked to define the word blurry, I may have digressed into telling an age inappropriate story about the time(s) Mommy drank too many Lemon Drop shots.  It happens.

G (Processing this information overload): So, if I get glasses will my eyes be better?

Me (with that rock in my chestal area):  No, baby.  Glasses are only for people who can still see a little.  But you could get some sunglasses, those are for everybody.

G:  Ok, cool.  I had a hotdog for lunch today.

I got him a pair of sunglasses and he looked super cute in them.  Gabriel was thrilled and proudly wore them every day. Happy he was happy, I was also secretly pleased. Since Gabriel’s eye transplant his eye leaks fluid which hardens into a yellow crust and rims his eye.  It looks pretty gross, and he’s too little to be on top of keeping it clean while he’s at school. His new Bono-esque shades hid the ‘crusties’ fabulously.  I patted myself on the back.  Another hurdle cleared on the path toward raising a happy, well adjusted, non-sighted child.

Un-huh.

Four months later: 

The pair of sunglasses I bought Gabriel broke.  I fixed them with swear words, crazy glue, tiny bits of my own flesh, and a nail file.  They looked awesome.  Alas, they did not feel the same, and therefore were deemed unacceptable.  Gabriel decided he wanted reading glasses like his Father has, and his Father bought him a pair.  I didn’t really support this decision, nor did I fight it.  Now, I wish I had. 

My first issue was purely aesthetic. The glasses are cute on him, but they magnify those crusties instead of covering them up.  As it were, I called myself a shallow b*tch and kept my comments to myself.  My second issue with the glasses came to light, just recently and has me much more concerned.

A few Tuesdays ago we were running late for school, and Gabriel forgot his glasses.  When he realized it he freaked out a little.  I asked him why he said, “Now, I won’t be able to see.”  The kid was so distraught, it went beyond the normal ‘opps, we forgot something at home.’  I’ve seen him less upset after running top speed into a wall (it happens about as much as you’d think).  I didn’t go back and get him the glasses, but I assured him that he’d be fine without them for one day.  He tearfully assured me that he’d try his best even though he was blind again. Recently reblinded, he didn't see me smack myself in the head.

Since that fateful Tuesday, we have argued many times about his level of sight.  While I maintain that there is none, Gabriel insists that while bespectacled, he can see.  Ironically, when asked to describe his surroundings or my attire or his shoes while wearing the glasses, he actually guesses less accurately than with his naked eyes.

Last night we had a bit of special time.  We ate dinner in the bedroom while listening to 'Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' and then after his shower I rubbed his little feet for him and we talked about life for a while.  I lead the conversation, gently, in the direction I wanted it to go.  Something like this:

Me:  It’s a shame those sunglasses broke, they were so cute on you.  Maybe this weekend we can see about getting you another pair like those and you can wear them to school.

G:  But those are sunglasses, I need reading glasses.

Me:  Gabriel, you are blind.  You don’t need any glasses.  You like them, and that’s cool, but you don’t need them.

G: Yes, I do.

Me: For what?

G: So I can see.

Me: You’re blind.  Totally blind.

G: No, I’m not.

Me: So which eye can you see out of.

G (tapping on his prosthetic lens): This one.

Me: That is plastic.

G: Ok, the other one then.

Me: Ok, can you see this light I’m shining in your eye right now?

G: Yes. It's very bright and beautiful.

Me: Aha, Gotcha.  Baby, there is no light.  You can’t see.  No kind of glasses in the world are ever going  to    help you see.  Yours will be a world filled with so much, but you won’t ever see it.

My boy was silent for a few moments, which was a blessing.  The small statement above cost me more to say than I need to admit. 

Finally, Gabriel said: but Mommy, I can see…with my fingers. *

I took a moment and collected my somewhat blurry thoughts.  Eventually I replied that while he can in fact 'check out' many things in the world with his hands, that does not change the fact that he can not see with his eyes.  He agreed with me, a little too quickly, and wanted extra snuggles.  This morning he insisted on wearing his glasses.

I’m pretty sure that I’m having one of those moments in Parenthood where I’m completely stressing about something that will work itself out in time.  I know he knows he can’t see, and I’m beginning to suspect that this is a manifestation of the realization of how much he’s missing out.  It’s the wishful thinking of an imaginative child. The only thing I can do is keep it in check (with love), remind him of reality (when need be) and not let him know how often I wish he could see what I’m seeing (just about every moment that I’m not looking at roadkill, scary bugs or Clowns^).

This is the first time I write of a problem that hasn’t yet been resolved.  I've got a game plan, though.  I’ve starting a campaign of distraction.  I’ve started teaching him to cook (one of my passions) and am working on making a few board games blind friendly.+  I’ve also been keeping a journal of the things I see that I’d love to tell him about.  For right now, I'd rather skim over the surface of all the things he's missing but maybe in the years to come, when my Little Dude is a well adjusted, blind Big Dude, we’ll read my journal and laugh about the time he freaked out because he forgot his glasses. 

 

 

 

 

*This is something that blind children hear a lot.  “You’ve got 10 little eyes on the ends of your fingers!”   That statement is a joke. It pissed me off even before I had a child and it pisses me off even more now.   I can’t even think of another condition to make a comparison to that wouldn’t wildly be offensive to someone I have no wish to offend.  I’m sure that somewhere along the line, someone thought that would be a nice way to make blind children feel normal (or some crap like that) but guess what??  They aren’t.  My kid is not normal.  He’s blind.  Since most people in the world are not blind, that makes my child abnormal, by the very definition of the word.  I also don’t believe in, “Thank you for Participating” trophies.  Eckkk…don’t get me started.

^ Clowns are terrifying.  Period.

+There are great tips for game modification at Wonderbaby.org