The day of my visit to Walker's Grove Elementary in Plainfield, Ill., happened to be "Weird Hair Day." Now that's scary.
The initial questions during our presentation at Walker’s Grove Elementary in Plainfield, IL yesterday were about how old Hanni is, what kind of dog she is, does she ever get a bath, that sort of thing. But then a third grade boy got up his courage to ask the one question he’d been wondering about the whole time. “Is it scary being blind?”
I get that question a lot during my presentations to children. Adults rarely ask me that, though. Hmm. Maybe they’re afraid to!
I think it’s scarier for people to watch me being blind than it is just being me. I’m not really afraid walking around downtown Chicago with Hanni, for example. I’m focused, that’s for sure. and yes, I’m careful. And okay, I’ll admit: sometimes I’m even a little nervous. But my heart doesn’t pound, I don’t fear for our lives. With Hanni, I’m confident. I know we’ll make it. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that she and I were so well trained at the Seeing Eye.
Here’s an excerpt about that training from my memoir, Long Time, No See. A couple things you’ll need to know to understand this excerpt: Robert is the man who trained Hanni and me. Dora was my first Seeing Eye dog, a beautiful Black Lab who worked until she was 12 years old.
Over the years, Dora had become so slow that I was unconsciously pushing her along rather than letting her pull me. Hanni didn’t like this. It confused her—she was supposed to pull me, and I wasn’t letting her. Robert tightened Hanni’s harness in a way that made it difficult for me to lift it and push, and on our routes through Morristown he kept a close eye on me, scolding and coaching me to keep the harness where it belonged. It reminded me of piano lessons, teachers struggling to rid me of the bad technique I’d developed after years of playing on my own.
I didn’t fight Robert, and I wasn’t defensive. I knew that getting the harness placement right again was key to my success with Hanni. After a few days it was easy to hold the harness correctly: Any time I did, Hanni flew. We skated down the sidewalks of Morristown, narrowly avoiding parking meters, garbage cans and telephone poles. “I don’t have any fingernails left!” Robert laughed after following us on one solo trip.
Hanni is eight-and-a-half years old now, and she doesn’t always zip along quite as fast as she did back then. But if the weather is cool, and Hanni’s spirits are high, we still have days we leave some Chicagoans “eating our dirt.” You’ll know them if you see them – they’re the ones without fingernails.
*smile* I find the curiosity of kids very amusing. Honestly I think adults are too afraid to ask that question! I often think that people think it’s scary being blind because they wouldn’t know what to do at first, so they think that that’s how a person who is blind must feel like. Like yeu said they are the ones who get more scared when they see a blind person being independent. For example, I just went for a doctors appointment for a rutine check-up. When the nurse called me in she said, “do you want to get weighed today?” “Um, I think that’s one of the reasons I came today,” I told her with a smile. When I was about to step on the scale, she wanted to hold my arm, and I could tell she was nervous (I guess she was anticipating the horrifying moment when I would trip on the scale and fall!) *smile* After she saw I could manage perfectly fine on my own, she was more calm.
Take care,
Sandra
Even with some sight, I get a lot of these responses as well. My encounters usually end with the person feeling embarrassed and timid about helping me, or they completely ignore the vision impairment altogether. Many times reactions and stuttering from people really amuse me. I chuckle to myself as I leave. I always walk away wondering what the other person is thinking. Hope that’s not super creepy, but I can ask myself how I would react in a situation like that. There wouldn’t be a problem if it were me. No ifs, ands, or buts.
I visited my DRS counselor and while I was waiting and my father was in another room, a counselor who was deaf approached me. He had an interpreter with him. She was very nice and interpreted everything he had to say. At first, I didn’t know who to look at, but then I realized that I was having a conversation with the person standing in front of me and to the left. It wasn’t with the interpreter, it was with the counselor. My eyes were going a bit crazy because of all the rapid signing between people. I can’t focus well if there’s a lot movement in my field of vision. Overall, I conversed well. It was amusing because I’ve wondered at one point if something new like that would happen to me. But hey, new experiences bring new knowledge. He was an awesome guy and Jim met someone new.
Hope you have a great weekend!
-Sarah & Jim
I know *exactly* what you guys mean — our blindness can make others more uncomfortable than it makes us! This week Hanni and I headed to the Walgreens on State and Roosevelt but inadvertently walked into a health club just one door short of the Walgreens. “Can I help you?? the nice young woman asked as I entered.
“Yeah,” I said. “Where’s the pharmacy?”
She was dumbstruck. I understand. She didn’t’ know quite how to tell me I’d made a mistake– the Walgreens was one door further. So ironic, I should have been the one to be embarrassed, but she was!
I didn’t really need help getting to the Walgreens after that, I realized the mistake I’d made and knew Walgreens was just one door down. But another worker ran up and asked if he could walk me there. What the heck, I thought, he wants to help, I’ll let him.
I grabbed his arm, and he introduced himself. “my name is Jose.”
“You won’t need that,” I told my helper, pointing to the sleeve of the long-sleeved jacket I was holding. “It’s hot out!”
“Oh,” he laughed. “I’m from Puerto Rico. It feels cold outside!”
From there we had a nice talk about baseball – a pitcher from the White Sox (Javier Vasquez) is from Puerto Rico, his daughter has Type 1 diabetes and I donated some autographed books to a fundraiser he had recently. “He’s a good guy,” Jose said, as if he knew him. Maybe he did!
In any case, it was a nice conversation I might not have had if I hadn’t made the mistake.
This makes me think of Mom (she had MS), who always said that she never minded when children asked things that adults would never ask, i.e. “why are you in a wheelchair” or “why can’t you feed yourself” or my friends little girl who pointed out that Mom had a diaper on. It always seemed much more honest than many adults who would either ignore her, talk to my Dad, treat her like she was either deaf or confused and generally just be afraid to say, Hi, how are you?
What is it about getting older that makes us so, well, so careful?! It has been fun giving these presentations to children, the sessions Hanni and I do seem to give the adults in the audiences (teachers, parents) “permission” to ask things they’ve been dying to ask, too. One question I often get from adults is, “What should I do if I see a blind person waiting at a street corner? Should I ask if they need help?” You know, it’s that question or some variation on that theme. I tell them I can’t speak for all blind people, but I like it if the strangers who cross my path simply say hello. That way I know they are there, and if I need help with directions or streetlights or whatever, I can ask.
I can relate to this very well. Very nice post. Just wanted to comment about that.
Aw, shucks. Thanks for the nice comment — glad you enjoyed this post.
I have the vast majority of a 20/20 (that in my sinister eye, 20/60 in my right (dexter) eye) but I’ve been in your shoes. Have you felt a blindfold before?
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