Questions Kids Ask: Are you going to be blind forever?

My Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I gave presentations to three more groups of third graders this past Tuesday.

Whit’s always up for a class visit.

It’s Disability Awareness Week at Sherwood Elementary and Red Oak Elementary Schools in Highland Park, Illinois. An athlete who is blind had been at both schools the day before to give presentations, and the third graders were eager to tell me all about her. “She was born blind,” one of the kids called out. “She learned to use that white stick when she was in first grade,” another young voice added. “She’s a triplet!” one exclaimed. “And she does triathlons!” I had to laugh. “One thing you’ll learn for sure today,” I told them. “Some of us blind people don’t have a lot in common!”

I’d learn later that the young woman who’d visited them Monday was Ashley Eisenmenger. An article I found in Illinois Country Living Magazine reports that she competes as a member of a Paratriathlon Development Team Through the Dare2Tri triathlon club based in Chicago.

The third graders were rightfully impressed with Ashley’s athleticism, but the questions they asked during my Q&A Tuesday revealed they were far more interested in the differences between being born blind and becoming blind:

• Do you sleep with your eyes closed or open?
• Did you go from being able to see to only seeing in one eye and then being blind?
• How do you know what person you are talking to?
• How do you know what you’re eating, do you just smell it and know?
• Do you have a husband?
• That lady who was born blind uses a stick that looks like a candy cane, if you’re born blind can’t you get a guide dog?
• How do you use the bathroom?
• When did you get blind?
• Can you drive?
• Is it hard to be a blind author?
• Are you going to be blind forever?
• When you dream can you see colors?
• If your husband isn’t home, how do you know what you are wearing?
• What author are you, anyway?
• Do you play video games?
• Are your dreams puffy?
• Would you prefer to be seeing?
• How do you know that your dog sat down when you told him to sit?
• How do you take a shower?
• Even if you can’t see, does sitting close to your computer screen hurt your eyes?
• If you don’t have a white stick, then how will you know if there is a big rock in your way?
• Is it busy in Chicago and its hard?
• Does your dog ever go to sleep?
• Do you know a second language?

That last question may seem out of nowhere until you learn that kids are taught in English and in Spanish at Red Oak Elementary: it’s a dual-language school. And my answer to that question was yes. “Of course I do,” I said with a smile. “I know Braille!”