Snarky Things I Never Said.

Little Dude and I were checking out of the grocery store yesterday when a young girl stopped to compliment him.  

“You have beautiful eyes” she said.

I almost dropped my jar of pickles on the floor.  I had to look at her real quick to make sure she wasn’t blind, too. 

Gabriel’s eyes are many things, but beautiful is not one of them.  I’m his Mother and I love him  with all of my heart, that being said: The kids eyes are completely messed up.  

The right one still needs surgery.  It’s too small, giving his eye socket a slightly sunken in appearance.  If you look closely you’ll see that the pupil is huge, white and glows, like a cat’s, in certain light. He has other white spots in the iris and that eye looks completely different than the right one which is a plastic lens that covers a hot, zombie mess.

Beautiful?  Really??

I don’t know what in the world came over me, but I was sorely tempted to encourage my sweet baby to take out his lens and hand it to her. 

No!!  Of course, I didn’t. 

I’m not in the habit of traumatizing teenagers.  Not yet anyway.  I said thank you, wished her a good day and tried to discretely sniff her for a tell-tale whiff of daytime drinking.

But then walking out of the store I noticed something.  Gabriel’s left eye does look really good these days.  It took a little more than a year but the prosthetic has settled into his face.  It no longer protrudes and looks like an obvious forgery the way it did in the months after surgery.

During that time I had to struggle, every time I left the house with my kid, not to bite someone’s head off for being an insensitive moron or - as we so eloquently say in New Jersey, a total douche bag.   

The following are some examples of things I didn’t say;

Douche Bag:  Is that a glass eye?

Me:  Nope, plastic.

Douche Bag:  Did he have surgery?

Me:  Nope, he gets it from me.  I’m a quarter plastic on my Mother’s side.

Douche Bag: Is he blind?

Me: Nope, being punished.  Not allowed to see today. 

Douche Bag: Can he see out of it?

Me: Yep.  It’s made of magical, future plastic. From the moon.

Douche Bag: What happened to him?

Me: He got deep into gambling a few years back.. owed money to the wrong people. I really can’t get into it. You should probably forget you ever saw us here.

Douche Bag: Is he just like a regular kid?

Me:  He’s actually a robot. 

                                                                      

I could go on and on… but you get the point.  You may have noticed that the questions are pretty much innocuous but still kind of nervy coming from perfect strangers.  Over and over and over again. I wanted to give then replies even more scathing than the ones I’ve mentioned but really…what would have been the point?  I did rather rudely excuse myself from some questions by walking away without a word.  

Those noesy people had no idea, but I was completely stressed out at that time. Gabriel refused to keep his lens in at night.  He would take it out and try to hide the fact that he did by hiding it.  He would cry when it had to go back in and I was still a nervous wreck putting it in.  I was punishing him by taking away his entertainment privileges, but that also punished me by leaving him unentertained and we were both exhausted from our nightly battle.  It was a dark time, my friends.  

When Gabriel and I were out all I wanted to do was forget about that stupid lens. Be out in the sunshine with my boy.  Grope some fruit in the Supermarket.  Sniff some scented candles.  Swim in the pool.  I never signed up to give a lecture on the complications of ROP, I just wanted to hang out with my boy.  I resented those people for breaking the mirage of normality I was desperately trying to shimmer in.   They pissed me of, and I got through it by making up snarky comments that I didn’t say and mentally assigning them adorable New Jersian nicknames.

I'm not worried about people bothering Gabriel when he's older like they bothered me last year.  He seems to be developing both an excellent, quick sense of humor and an impressive vocabulary.  Armed with these weapons, he will go out into the world a quick-witted, sarcastic warrior, more than capable of keeping a prying stranger in check …not a blind guy who feels weird because someone asks him if his eyes pop out.