"She set him down on a park bench. 'I'll be back in 20 minutes, dad. Stay put.' He laughed. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he replied and adjusted the thick glasses that shielded his unseeing eyes."Oddly enough being legally blind isn't the same thing as being blind. I fall into the first category, but I can still see well enough to do things here and there. That said, you'll always see shows on TV that want to make super-humans out of blind people--as though their other four senses were somehow ten times better than everyone else's. But the truth is, blind peoples' senses are the same as ours, they've just been training how to use them differently than we do for ...generally longer than we have, unless they've only just gone blind. In which case, they're in the same boat as you and me.
That said, learning how to "see" without being able to see is definitely possible. Maybe you can't see the colors of something, but your idea of color might be attuned to sensations instead--especially if you have someone in your life that can tell you what color the things around you are.
I want to say one last thing about the Netflix show Daredevil. What the protagonist does on that show is beyond what a normal blind person (or any person) can do. That's why he's part of the Marvel comic book universe. He's a superhero who just happens to have been blinded by chemicals when he was young. And I like to think something in those chemicals changed him, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see as I've never read the comic.
For now, though...let's try and explore the world together from a park bench.
Finding the Sun
For my part, I try to enjoy the time alone, but the truth is that every moment outside of my home is a trial. Imagine, after all, what it is like to not be able to know for certain what surrounds you. Imagine having to have a system for remembering where everything is--where everything is supposed to go back to so that it doesn't become lost. Your whole life becomes a routine. My children believe that I need a life outside of my apartment, though. And I suppose, in their own way, they're right. But the routine of the day is broken by these visits, and while I'm becoming more accustomed to them, it doesn't make them any easier.
Before the accident--before our lives were turned upside down--before she died, life had been moving along as it should have been. It wasn't always perfect, but Stella and I always had each others' backs, and the children were well on their way to being happily ensconced in the world's mysteries. We had both just retired and were planning our last years on this earth together. But sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and all you can do is roll with it.
She leaves me on empty benches at the park; no other sounds of papers turning or the painted, wooden boards creaking, save for when I shift on them. Today's bench was warm, the smooth feel of fresh paint gliding past my fingertips. There was no shade, sweat beading on my brow after only a few moments. It made me want to stand and see if I could find a bench somewhere else, but I had promised my daughter I wouldn't move. So, I tried to pretend I was at the beach, instead.
The traffic behind me was from a busy street, and I could half-pretend that the sounds of the cars were ocean waves. Stella and I--we had planned on visiting the beaches of the Mediterranean. And while this wasn't exactly southern France, it made the wait a little easier to bear.
On occasion there was a cooling breeze, and with it came the scent of newly-mown grass--probably done earlier in the day. There was a concrete trail behind me, and I heard more than a few joggers pass by--a runner or two, their footsteps heard in the lull of traffic waves. Far across the way I heard the sounds of children laughing and playing--vibrant and always changing from moment to moment. It was something I envied a little--that ability to focus on the moment and not consider the next or the next after that.
The sounds of echoes made by the passing cars told me that we weren't near any buildings today; they were swallowed up instead of bouncing around off of bricks and glass.
Swallowed up...that's what my whole future had become when she died. She'd lived through the accident, but there were internal injuries, and I'd lost my eyes, the optic nerve severed by shattered glass--inoperable. All the kids came to the hospital--MIchael, Regan, Steffan, and Anna; so, they were there when the doctors told us that she'd stopped breathing--that they'd put her on life-support, but without it, she would die.
A blood clot had made it to her brain--that which we need to survive, instead killing her.
I am told the funeral was beautiful, and it must have been. The sweet scents of flowers seemed to cover every inch of the room where we held it. I can barely remember anything of the reception afterward. It was a year of hollow emptiness after that--swallowed up by that one fateful moment when a speeding car collided with our own. Michael and Anna handled almost everything then. Regan had to return to Washington--her family and her job as important as losing her mother. Steffan, too, had his family and his job to deal with. Michael was divorced--no kids, which I suppose was good for them both. And Anna just hadn't found anyone to suit her--her secretarial work for my dad's law firm keeping her busy. Dad had passed away ten years before the accident, and mom had followed soon after. My brother, Daniel, had passed away from a heart attack at 30--too many drugs when he was younger, and too much stress from working undercover on the force. He'd been married and divorced, but we never heard anything from his wife after his funeral. They'd had two boys; never saw them, either. Don't know what happened to any of them, really.
It took us another year to deal with the effects of my blindness, and I will admit that there were days when I was an absolute troll. But we made it through--through to today, with our park bench alone time that was again longer than the aforementioned twenty minutes.
It's funny how friends change when they find out you can't see any longer. Can't drive, of course; so, those invitations to come and join them for this or that stopped coming. They'd come over from time to time, but they were busy enjoying their lives, too. And for those first few years, I can't say I really wanted the company. I'd learned to live with the quiet of my own blindness. And while I wasn't entirely at peace with it--with all the empty years ahead of me without her--I had found a good middle ground.
I'd taken up reading--audio books, which were far easier to find, and braille--which was still slower for me than I liked (but I was getting better). Public radio had become a source of entertainment for me--more so than the TV, which I still had but mostly used only for news. Cooking was...both a joy and a frustration, but I'd gotten to know the delivery guys pretty well.
Michael and I usually did something once a week, and Anna dropped by a few times a week and helped me do my Amazon shopping. Trips to the park and the park bench were reserved for Sundays. Stella had been the religious one of us; I just figured if there was a God out there somewhere, he, or she, or it wasn't going to give a damn about whether or not I acknowledged it. Sometimes I'd go with Stella to services, but I haven't gone since her death, in spite of the invitations.
Anna thinks I should, but she doesn't go either.
I always know when she's coming back, though; she loves to wear Chloe, the perfume, and the scent of it catches on the air even as I hear her footsteps hissing through the grass around the bench. The scent of coffee wafts around her, along with the perfume, and she puts a cup into my hands before sitting down beside me.
"No jogging today?" I ask.
"Nah," she replies, her voice so like Stella's that sometimes I find it hard to talk to her.
"Coffee, then," I say as I lift the lukewarm cup and take a sip. It isn't what you want, really, after sitting out in the heat of the day, but there's something about a good cup of coffee that feels like home no matter where you're drinking it--that makes you not mind the warm day and warm drink together so much.
"Mmmm," she replies, the sound of her voice indicating that she's thinking about something, her head turned away and looking toward the sounds of children far across the way.
Swallowing, I let the silence hang between us for a few moments, waiting to see if she'll say anything. When she doesn't, though, I cup the coffee between my palms, wrap my hands around it, and settle it in my lap. "Everything all right?"
She was quiet for a while, but finally she spoke, her head turned toward me, as mine was turned toward hers. "I've been thinking about moving."
Reluctance colored her words, as though she hadn't wanted to say them to me. I could understand the desire, though. She was young, just starting out her career--probably had a better offer than the law firm, and there were memories here--some that were probably hard to escape, some that were probably painful reminders of what she'd lost. Myself included.
I won't say I kept a straight face; i would have liked to, but the frown came before I could stop it--before I could stop her from responding to it.
"It wouldn't be very far. And I could come and visit on the weekends."
I shook my head, a faint, sad smile catching at my lips. "Honey,...you don't have to worry about me. We have everything set up so I can do most of the things you help me with on my own." I added, my face becoming more serious and touched with as much concern for her well-being as I could manage. "And it's time you started living your own life instead of worrying about your old man."
There was a pause, a cooling breeze blowing past us both, the scent of her perfume blown along with it. When she spoke once more, she was looking back toward those screaming, laughing children across the way.
"I don't want to leave you, dad, but--"
She sounded wounded--like the way I felt in the days following Stella's funeral, and while I couldn't make it better, I could at least let her know I understood. "No buts," I said, smiling a bit, and hoping she was smiling, too. It had been one of those things we used to say to the kids when they didn't want to do this or that and were trying to explain to us why they shouldn't have to do them. "You've got a whole future ahead of you, Anna, and staying here isn't going to help you find it." I really did smile then. "I think this is a good thing, and if it's something you really want to do, you should do it."
She was looking back at me when she replied, but I could hear the relief in her voice, "Well, ...I'm still only thinking about it for now."
I nodded and thought to myself, Good for you, Anna. Time to let go of all this mess and maybe find out who you are without it.
But rather than saying it, I reached out a hand, palm up and let her place her hand in mine. And then I squeezed it, hoping it gave her some reassurance. "It's good to think about things," i mused, looking out over whatever lay between our bench and the far-off sounds of those children. "Why don't we head back now though--before I get sunburned."
She laughed a bit, the sound of it apologetic as she squeezed my hand in turn before standing. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I didn't even think about that."
"Eh..." I replied as I stood in turn, letting her lead me away from the bench and back to the car, "I needed some sun anyway."
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