Loving Yourself Like A Five-Year Old

Tags

Acceptance, Acts of Kindness, Alternative, Animals and Children, Blessings, Blind, Connect, Expansion, Guide Dog, Meaning of lIfe, Munch, Perfection, Service

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What does my Five-year old granddaughter love about herself?

“I love my hands as they help give things to people. They can also do sign language to people who cannot hear.

I love my eyes as they can help see things for people who cannot see, just like you Mam.

I love my ears as they can listen out to help people who are deaf.

I love my mouth as I can talk to people who need to chat”.

I have always known that she was a beautiful soul, but I never realized just how bright her light within was constantly alight until I asked her this simple question. This glimpse into the mind of an innocent five-year-old who has yet to query her worth in life, took me to a place that I wish we could all live. These ideas have not been forced into her mind in any way, they have just emerged from her authentic perception of what it is really like to live in a world  with others with needs that are sometimes greater than her own.

She was just nine months old when Munch my adorable Guide Dog came to live with us so she cannot remember a time where Munch was not a permanent fixture by my left-hand side on days out. She has always been my eyes. When I drop something, she picks it up without being asked.  She holds things close to my face so that I can get a better view of the blurry object and she mastered using my white cane as soon as she could walk, just because she felt like it. To her sight loss is no big thing, it just is part of her grandmother’s life.

Munch to her is not a Guide Dog, he is just family.  I was told once by her teacher when I picked her up from school, that they had asked that morning what the name of my dog was. She looked puzzled at them and asked what dog ? With Munch weighing six stone and his head measuring thirty-three inches from the floor clad in a bright yellow and white harness, she thought they were talking about some other dog.  She told them he was not a dog; he was just Munch.

When children grow up with disabilities and other differences around them, they can only see normality. They accept the whole of a person as they are and know no different. Children who grow up alongside difference see an expanded version of the limited world other’s live in. They learn that for every problem there are a multitude of different solutions and they learn to love unconditionally and never with condition. They are the teachers that speak with the wisdom that we never thought we would here.

When a five-year old talks of including those in society that are often left feeling excluded, they will never be alone. It is this type of child who accepts without effort or limit and sees beyond barriers that need never exist. Kindness can only come from a place that it organically exists if it is to be omnipresent in every situation in life. When we are choosing to be kind in life, we are choosing to live an enriched path that will never see us alone.

What do I love most about my granddaughter? Her pure existence and everything that it entails.

The Deception Of Looks

Tags

Acceptance, Acts of Kindness, Animal and children, Appearance, Blessings, Blind, Childrens Acceptance, Diversity, Earth Angels, Gratitude, Hidden Disability

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I know what you are thinking. It is a Yeti croissant but no, you would be wrong!

That is the thing with assuming with our eyes, we never really get it right no matter how hard we try. We can never utterly understand what our eyes are tricking us into believing, as we only really see one perspective of an object that fits in with our world belief. Being led around by my hairy soul mate Munch lets people think that he is working for me, whereas anyone who knows him will know that I really work for him. Leading me to a place we need to go, results in a treat or two being eagerly hoovered up and me giving him at least a ten-minute worshipping ritual, telling him how he is the best living being ever in the world. We have found our power balance in our relationship and let us just say it is far from equal. Anyone with a Labradoodle knows that the power always lays with them and never with us.

The deception of looks alone has led us to many a faux pas in our four years together. From being mistaken as  Munch’s trainer as I “didn’t look blind enough to have a Guide Dog” (???) to being asked where my collection bucket was for the imaginary  fundraising collection someone though I  was doing as a fully sighted person with a Guide Dog,  assumptions can be wrong. Assuming Munch’s innocent face is incapable of being one of the world’s most notorious ball thief, is also another misconception. Maybe now is not the time to go into his known alias of “Good Boy” that everyone calls him when really, one of my friends knows him as the Pasty Thief that gently and lovingly alighted a pasty from her three year old daughters hand just as it was about to be transported to her mouth. A swift pasty replacement later and all was forgiven but the name has still stuck.

For me, one of the most infuriating misconceptions in the world today is when people criticize the “youth of today” from the narrative of the media alone without enough experience to make up their own minds about judging a whole section of society. Admittedly, I am slightly biased having worked with children and young people for the last twenty-six years on and off, but at least I have a privileged insight into their world. Working in schools with a Guide Dog brings with it many comments being directly and indirectly aimed at me. Some are hilarious, some are tactful, whilst others are said filter free but I for one love variety, so all are welcomed. There are times however that are heart melting such as the one  that happened last week.

Asking Munch to “find the steps” for us to lead us to our room, he quickened the pace before stopping at the end of the steps for my foot to find our starting point. Having the fuzzy triple visioned blurry light colour ahead of us seemingly reaching up to the heavens (which the sighted call stairs), we began climbing. I was aware of two pairs of footsteps ahead of me going in the same direction and held back a little for us not to get in their way. Mid climb, one pair of light footsteps stopped and began coming back down. Just as we were about to move to the side to let the lively feet and attached body to pass us, they stopped just in front of us. A sweet-sounding teenage boy seemed to lean towards us and ask, “Excuse me, do you need any help at all?”

It took me a while to wonder why he  would ask if I needed help? I began to wonder if I was walking in the wrong direction into a forbidden part of the school  or if something horrible had attached to me on our way up the stairs when I remembered I couldn’t see and had a Guide Dog with me. I know it sounds weird but if you have never been able to see clearly from birth and everything is always a blur, you know no different and it is never really an issue. This is my world where I forget I cannot see as I have never know any different. It is when I am totally oblivious to the fact that it is a disability, there is always a gentle reminder that appears to remind me that it is. When I walk with Munch by my left hand side, I totally forget he is a Guide Dog as I chatter away to him asking him to turn left or right or find doors and objects whilst praising him as we go. The problem when you have sight loss living in a sighted world is that you sometimes forget that people can see.

When my brain finally caught up with what the sweet boy meant, my heart melted. He must have seen someone with an obvious disability (even though I was too away with the fairies to remember I had one myself) and took time out of his day to ask if there was anyway he could help. He did it so discreetly, lowering his  tone not to draw attention which in itself showed what kind hearted soul he really was. I thanked him a lot for stopping to ask  but said we were fine. As he went on his way he told me to take care which I wished him back as my smile widened. There are more Earth Angels around us than we realized. This seemingly small interaction between a teenager from the Sighted world and a grandmother from the Sight Loss world spoke volumes about the world we live it.

To him, his kindness was a natural part of his being  . To me, his kindness was a gift that will get him so far in life that I hope his Karmic bank overflows. He saw me with a disability where I may have needed a bit of assistance. Whereas I saw myself as fully able bodied . We were both 100 % right  in that situation in our own ways. I hope that he always has someone around to help him if he ever needs it.

4 Year Partnershipversary.

Tags

Animal, Anniversary, Blessed, Blind, Disability, Drama King, Free spirit, Guide Dog, Healing, Help, Hiden Dissability, Kindness, Labradoodle, Life Purpose, Positivity, Thanks, Unconditional Love, Vision Impairment, Working Dog, Worth the wait

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There are certain dates of our life events that will forever stick in our minds. We will always remember what we were doing, who we were with, what we were wearing or a certain heightened sense that lays dormant in our memory when a key moment in time happened. For me, when I have just finished playing peek-a-boo (which I don’t do enough of) wearing a dress covered in yoghurt and Wotsit crisp crumbs curtesy of my gorgeous granddaughter, in the house full of my noisy family chattering away loudly, I remember the time the phone rang. Here was the change that I had been dreading and eagerly awaiting in equal measures. Guide Dogs had matched a suitable dog for me and wanted to arrange to meet up. Seventeen months of waiting was over. My “unusual” guide dog was ready to change my life forever.

I still remember that uneasy feeling in my stomach after putting the phone down. We had arranged to meet sweet Minster a few days later but I was unsure if I was ready to let the world know that I had a sight problem. When you keep the severity of your disability hidden away from loved ones for so long, the reaction from others is always a fear. What if they do not believe you? Worse still, what if they pity you? What if I did not connect with the dog? What if the dog did not like me? All these fears were just imagined problems that never cropped up anywhere in life, only in my head. The truth was, life was going to change forever, but in the most positively magical way possible.

When Minster (or Munch as he has become affectionately known as) came bounding through the door on November 17^th, 2016, he had decided that this partnership was going to work. He would be the boss from day 1 (apart for in Angus the cat’s world, where Angus remains King) and our training together would go fine. He would make himself at home on whichever soft furniture took his fancy (shhh, don’t tell his trainers), he would command affection by the Royal wave of his paw, create hilarious drama at every opportunity and project his adorable personality to loved ones and strangers alike. He was here to stay and be the neon sign to the hidden disability that I had kept to myself for 38 years. Subtlety has never been his strong point, but authenticity has.

This 100mph couch-potato is the gift that keeps on giving. Giving me immense independence to carry on working and living a full life, seems just a tiny part of this gift. The partnership we have developed has allowed us to go places I would never have gone alone. He enabled me to win Bronze for Wales in VI Bowls, which was only possible after he gave me the confidence to admit that I had a VI in the first place. His extroverted charm enabled us to meet people who I never would have met without this secret weapon to everyone’s soul. He helped me write an award-winning book that would never have been written had my disability remained hidden. To sum up what mind-blowing ways Guide Dogs help their owners (or their maids like in our relationship), is not an easy task but what I would say is this. They are portals into lives that we never would have lived without them.

4 years on and Munch still bounds though life in his puppy like ways, causing mischief and mayhem wherever he goes. Whilst on harness however, he is the perfect poster boy for Guide Dogs, taking his work life serious as he sashays with pride in harness. He has prevented my previous frequent falls and injuries, stayed by my side in hospital after surgery and healed many a broken heart in work and not once has he stopped being a natural born healer. The beauty in his sweet nature is that his loyalty belongs to whoever needs it at that moment in time. It seems that his Guide Dog duties are just one of his life purposes as he glides through life being of services whatever way he can. He is the best teacher that anyone can be blessed to live with in everyday life.

So, thank you Munch for deciding that our partnership would work from day one. You have given so much to me, family, friends, our clients, and strangers alike by never being anything but unconditional love. We still have a few years left of a working partnership and I promise when you do retire you will be even more spoilt than you are today. The doggy kisses and love that you dish out freely will return to you in abundance as your Karmic bank account grows day by day. I promise to up my daily worshipping rituals to you each day and keep telling the world about the superpowers of you and your hero Guide Dog colleagues. Thank you for the eternal gift of being you.

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Masked in Kindness

Tags

Blind, Disability, Face masks., Guide Dog, Hidden Disability, Kindness, Sight Loss, Unconditional Love

If looks could kill, I think my maid may have been a new arrival in the morgue in this sterile smelling building. I may be the only dog in this waiting room, but all menacing eyes are all on her as she sits there without a mask on. It seems rather pointless though as she cannot even see them looking at her and if it were not for the friend that we brought with us telling her that she is under surveillance, she would not have known. Being exempt from wearing a mask on medical and disability grounds obviously means only one thing to these not so friendly bunch. Unapologetic judgment has clearly replaced the kindness movement from only a few months ago. Humans eh? Go figure.

My rather fragrant anal exhale which only seems to rile them up even more in hindsight may not have helped matters. The puffing out of their masked mouths alerts me that I have now entered their bad books too. I am not sure if this hospital visit can get any worse. Sitting in the corner away from everyone, I think the plan of the maid and our masked friend we had with us was that we would not be in anyone’s way. I think however that this Feng Shui faux pas meant that we were in the direct line of sighted people’s vision. From the tutting sounds around, this may not have been the Feng Shui love corner. The maskless maid however was totally oblivious of this as she chatted away to me and our third Musketeer.

As I sashayed my curvaceous body towards the nurses’ room with the maid in tow, I crossed my padded paws that things would get a little friendlier in there. Escorting the maid to her chair, we sat together and waited for the nurse to begin the consultation. She was far less frosty and even complemented me on my good looks and melting puppy dog eyes. One of the perks of being a guide dog is that you never really go long without someone falling in love with you at the most random of places. All was going well until a face shield wearing, masked plastic covered less hairy two-legged race (a.k.a human) came in. That is where I lost my bottle and went to cower behind the maid’s battered chair.

You see, I have not mentioned up until now that masks really scare me. Not just me but many of my canine colleagues. We know you all must wear them due to Government guidelines but that does not make it any less scary. We are getting used to it slowly but please be patient with us. The thing is, we love looking at your fascinating faces. We learn to read your cues and emotions as much as you learn to read ours. Eye to eye contact alone can be scary for us. Most dogs may only see their owners or people on their walks in masks but us working dogs go into ever imaginable public place and it is taking us a little time to adjust.

I wish I could have communicated this to the slightly stroppy newly arrived nurse in the room who barked at me that “I will have to get used to the look” when she queried why I had gone to cower behind my maid. I was surprised that the maid only rolled her eyes and managed to bite her tongue and not reply to her. We need voices to speak on our behalf, but I trust the maid to fight the battles that need to be fought and leave others go unchallenged. The slammng of the door behind her was a welcomed sound as we carried on the consultation with the nice one.

It is not just us dogs that are having a hard time with this new mask wearing community that we find ourselves in. We have a family friend with an Autistic child who is petrified of going out at present due to fearing all these new changes they are encountering. I think I may currently be this child’s safety blanket as I am still the same maskless dog as I have always been which is helping the transition process of helping the child get used to the new normal. A deaf friend of my maid’s is also having a hard time of things as lip reading others is impossible now due to being in a world that she can no longer communicate in. Not all people not wearing masks are doing it to cause conflict.

If I could give you less hairy two-legged race humans some advice at this moment in time it would be…

Be kind.

The person you see Infront of you without a mask is still a person with feelings. Barking out insults to them says far more about you than it does about them.

Be sociable.

 I know social distancing rules don’t at the moment allow you all to go and sniff each other’s body parts to find out where you have been (you really don’t know what you are missing), but you can still talk to one another and communicate safely.

Be compassionate.

You only know your own life story, do not let your ego trick you into thinking that you know theirs. Meet each new person with a waggy tail regardless of if they have a face covering or not.

Be thankful.

Give gratitude that despite not wanting to really wear a mask, that you can. Not everyone is blessed with the level of health and physical ability that you have. We as dogs see you all as equal so try and do the same to each other.

Be Autonomous.

You do you and let others do themselves. What Missy the Labrador or Eric the Terrier does is their business, what I do as the best Labradoodle I can be is my own business. We can still be friends and respect each other even if we act differently.

Just a quick heads up, if I see you with a mask or face shield on and cower away from you, I am not doing it to offend you, I am just adjusting to all the changes that we are all going through  at this tough time. We are all the same people that we were before the pandemic and after all of this is over we will fall out less, love more and have more compassionate get togethers to pick up where we left off and pee on lamp posts in unity. Okay maybe you less hairy two-legged race want to skip the last part, but we are all in this together.

I cannot wait to see the whole of those beautiful faces again soon to cover with my doggy kisses.

The Judging Sceptic

Tags

Acceptance, Blind, Hidden Disability, Non Judgemental Attitude, Sight Loss

I forget people can see me rolling my eyes. To be honest, I forget people can see.

When you have never seen a face clearly before as everyone is just a blur, you kind of forget that the sighted world sees everything. They especially see the things that you really don’t want them to see, such as eye rolling that I am rather partial too. Ooooops.

With a face that just cannot lie, I let my eyes roll upwards and to the side to try and search for a polite answer to the snappy sounding store assistant that stood before me. I am usually far more patient, but I had just experienced this London Bus Syndrome senario where for the third time in less than twenty minutes those dreaded four words were directed at me. To others, the words “you don’t look blind” may seem like a compliment and it is in a way but when it is said in an accusing tone, it really isn’t a compliment. It was this third London Bus that day that had come along after a drought of these well-meaning buses that had triggered the lively eyes rolling in my head.

Maybe my reaction was slightly more emphasised after she had said that she had “seen a lot of blind people in this shop and you don’t look like them”. A spluttered giggle remained inside of me. A colourful phrase stayed inside my head and did not escape my lips. What was more surprising was, I even managed to not bite back to her curt accusing tone with a crocodile snap of my own. The other two previous people who had stopped to cheery chat and said I didn’t look blind meant it in a positive light but this lady was different. She was like many we had come across in the past, which were the worst kind. The Sceptic.

Walking around with a physical disability feels like you sometimes need to carry medical evidence around with you to thrust in somebody’s face to validate yourself and prove their ignorance wrong. I understand that the primary source of information that many in the sighted world use to make decisions is their vision, but I sometimes wish it wasn’t as looks can be so deceiving. Having a unusual looking striking guide dog does not help with the stereotyping of what a blind person or a guide dog should look like either which she also picked up on. This apparent expert on not only what “blind people look like” but also an expert in the field of guide dogs as her next door neighbours aunt had one, thought that a Labradoodle like Munch was not a guide dog. The ignorance of others can really make your mind boggle. It does make me thankful that I do not use my eyes alone to make judgements on people that I know nothing about. Now that would be living with true blindness.

I really hope that my parting words to her would help her to broaden her narrow outlook on life, but I somehow doubt it. Cheerily uttering the words “we don’t all look the same” filled the silence between us with no reply from her as we bid her goodbye. Whether or not this planted seed will grow a more open way for her to see the world or not, I feel like I did my bit. I am still working on my poker face whilst persuading my overtly rolling eyes to calm down whilst in such situations, so maybe I will get there someday. Until then I will continue to clench my teeth and smile sweetly in my non blind looking way.

Judging will always say more about the person judging than the one being judged.

A Different Way Of Life

Tags

Blind, Children, Disability, Parenting, Sight Loss

I was sure that was his ear that I was lovingly gazing at. Just to make sure I gently traced my finger along his tiny head that lay in the crook of my arm and felt where his baby soft hair ended and his tiny ear began. I wasn’t far off where I thought where his ear was. My double vision of this beautiful blur had led me slightly off course but what did it matter anyway? The miracle of life that had still been inside me just 13 hours before was now being fed in my arms as I stood in my dining room with my other hand resting on his brothers highchair. This feeling of unconditional love that swept through me was not new as I had experienced it three other times over the last six years when my other children were born but it was slightly different. Just hours earlier a lovely student midwife had asked me if there was anything that I needed help with because of my eyesight and that was totally new.

Over the years I had never been asked that question by anyone. Had she not discussed my medical notes with me and enquired with her fresh new mind about what issues Marfan Syndrome gave me I would not have told her my eyes were “not the best”. It was so lovely to see the eagerness of the student to drink in all the information that she knew would help her on her placement. As soon as the caring questions left her lips, I began to think if there was any help that I needed? I had never thought of this before as I had always got on with motherhood in my own way and loved all its challenges. If you know no other way of life, then there is nothing that can ever really be missing from it.

I really wanted to tell this sweet young girl that if I had fully functioning vision I probably would need help to learn to parent all over again but I didn’t as it would sound bizarre. The thing was. It was because I couldn’t see that I found motherhood so smooth. I tuned into my children at such a deep level that I could sense everything about them. My touch told me how they were in themselves, my hearing let me know what their cries needed, and my gut told me if there was anything to fear in the silence. My logical brain told me everything I needed to know to keep them safe and therefore if all of these senses that had kept them happy and safe for the last six years were dampened down and I was given fully functioning vision instead, I would have to unlearn all that I had learnt.

I knew each of their personalised footsteps as they raced around the house and listened for the different materials of their coats rubbing as their arms propelled them forward whilst running outdoors to know that they were safe. Their whispering sleep filled breath that fell on my ears at night assured me that they were happily dreaming away nicely. The freshly smelling bathed baby soft bodies let me know that they were clean in their fragrant newly washed clothes. Most of all however it was their giggles that let me know that even though their mother could not see as well as most, they were doing okay. I am not sure therefore if I ever did need any additional help as I felt that however we all worked together as a team, it worked. My four beautiful children were the best teachers I have ever had in my blurry. “not the best” visioned world.

Thinking back to 16 years ago to this scene of me standing with my son (who is now 6ft 4) in my arms, makes me grateful for my sight loss as it made me fall in love with my children and life in a different way. My beautiful eldest daughter is now an amazing mother to her own sweet daughter and are both a ray of sunshine wherever they go. My second daughter who is only 11 months younger has turned out to be the most thoughtful and caring person you can ask for and is herself a student midwife asking similar important questions to help new mothers in any way she can. My adorably quirky oldest son has achieved things that nobody expected him to achieve and overcome barriers that would have stopped most yet his determination is omnipresent. My youngest charismatic mischief making son, is led by his old soul in connecting lovingly to people he meets and makes them feel valued. They have turned out perfect in every way.

So, when people ask me why I didn’t tell people I could not see or ask for help when I brought up these amazing people, I didn’t feel like I needed to. Maybe the whole story will appear in another book someday but until then I will just say that I wouldn’t have changed anything as these perfect not so little people showed me a different kind of magical life that I am blessed to have lived with them.

Sorry, Was That Your…..?

Tags

Blind, Humour, Mistakes, Sight Loss

Have you ever seen something that was not there? A shadow in the corner of your eye, an outline of a face in a piece of toast or a word on a page that only existed in your mind? Me too. It happens quite a bit with sight loss, like missing objects and only seeing space or vice versa when you see objects instead of space. Well, your mind convinces you that you are seeing something that is not there. With sight loss a lot of the time you see things with a combination of your brain working out what it could be through method of deduction and pure and utter guess work.

Occasionally, this combination can get you into trouble in which I am an expert in. Take the following incident for example.

I was out one night with some university friends (pre-Munch days). After falling off stage in epic style (joys of a black stage raised on a black floor and very little vison), we checked for btoken bones then chatted away and tried to find a seat. There were none available, so we loitered with intent near some tables and chairs that were apparently there (I could not see) and waited for people to leave. As I finished my drink I wondered where I may put my empty glass. My friend told me where to find an empty table so off I went in what I thought was the right direction. All I could see what a pair of white legs flopped either side of a table (at least, that’s what my mind told me). This same conniving brain told me that the positioning of the flopped legs either side meant that there was a table in between these legs, and that this was the table that my friend had described. As I lowered my glass onto this imagined table, I saw the white lines growing closer together until they became a unified white line. It was only as my glass gently touched down on the crotch of a poor terrified man that I realized that there was no table and he had just been sitting with his legs akimbo. The panicky apology that I shouted at him over the blaring music felt a little too late. I really hoped that the CCTV cameras were not working that night.

For me, these incidents are more the norm than a rarity. I still think back to such incidents with a bowed head and chuckling heart to all the mistakes I have made in life. Being led astray by lack of vision and a comedic brain never lets life get boring or stale. Being a little daft is just part of my genetic make up and anything normal just wouldn’t be me. Blundering through life always keeps things lively and guessing if someone has a table between their legs on a night out will never get boring.

The above excerpt was taken from my upcoming book What You See When You Can’t See. If you want to read more cringe worthy tales, the book is full of them, so you won’t be disappointed.

Talking Rubbish

Tags

Blind, Hidden Disability, Humour, Sight Loss

My life before Munch was a little….different. Walking around with sight loss made it feel like I was an undercover alien in a world full of normality. The superhuman sighted could do things that I could only dream of. Like tell the difference between a person and a bin. I know, amazing right?

One day, in the land of triple vision hazy fog (my equivalent of 20/20 vision), I found myself standing in a rainy pre-historic, dimly lit train station in the Welsh town that I lived in. With only five trains passing through each day (public transport haven I know), I knew that there was no chance of me getting on the wrong train as the next one was two and a half hours away. I was busy attempting to dodge the icy rain drops that was cleansing the shelter free station when a faint pair of footsteps approached. Minutes later, a deep heavy voice paired up with the boot sounding feet and grunted out a groggy hello.
A fellow passenger awaiting to board the train was a rarity on such early mornings in this sleepy town. Chirping a hello back in the direction that I thought he was in; I went straight into my acting mode. Rummaging in my bag for my phone to attempt to check the blurry time, the echoing voice progressed from grunting to audible two words sentences in a nanosecond. I answered politely to each thing he said although I still could not see him.

I was well into my slow-motion owl impression, turning my head in all angles in a scanning mode, when I thought I spotted where he was standing. About six feet away from me I saw something which resembled a person so decided to direct most of the rest of the conversation in that direction. The darkness of the early morning seemed to embrace the blurry figure lovingly as the figure and background merged into one. At least I was now looking at the person, or so I thought.

Over the next ten minutes before the train came, we talked about the weather, lack of public transport to take us into civilisation, how chocolate Wagon Wheels have got smaller over the years and migrating birds. The usual morning chit chat on a cold winter morning. Feeling proud that I was looking in the right direction of the man although I could not see him, I heard the distant approach of the train. I was so thankful of my hearing, Until I heard the footsteps of the man walk slowly in front of me to walk up the platform for the approaching train.

It was at that moment that I realized that I had all along been facing and chatting to the bin on a post all along. I should have remembered that bin as I had walked into it a couple of times in past. As there was such an echo in the train station, it was difficult to pin-point where exactly the centre of the echo was to try and figure out the exact location of the man. Trying to fit into a world with people with superhuman powers of sight, seemed impossible as I blundered through life. Keeping sight loss hidden from others I had down to a fine art, except for in situations such as this.

Talking to rubbish bins instead of people, walking into benches that blend in with the colour of the floor, sitting on coffee tables instead of the same height chairs in waiting rooms are all perils of living in the sighted world with sight loss. Noticing a guide dog or white cane with a person makes more sense for such odd behaviours and a little more understanding happens. I am blessed that the universe gave me such a “in your face” guide dog that screams sight loss and for that I will be eternally grateful. At least now if I talk to a bin, people will know there is a reason in my madness.

A Million Pieces Lost And Found

Tags

Blind, Choice, Motivation, Positivity, Resilience, Sight Loss

With the upside-down camera like information seeker ready to transform the surroundings into evidence, it begins its job. From the moment that they wake, the sighted are bombarded with millions of pieces of information that their brain will interpret to tell them about the world that they live in. From written information plastered on walls around them to watching facial expressions change in a blink of the eye, the eyes are on constant lighthouse duty. The masses of atoms in front of the eye will get matched by the brain to fit into the awaiting box of named items that will help the observer make sense of the world that they live in.

With the ability of the naked eye to see the light of a candle 14 miles away in the right lighting conditions, these superhumans know things that millions will never know. With half of the human brain being dedicated to vision and seeing, the sighted can be fountains of knowledge to learn from. As the eye is the fastest muscle in the body and does not take anytime to warm up as it is ever ready, when it is working properly, it can function at 100% at any given time without needing to warm up.

The eyes can be full of finds but they can also be full of loss.

What about the 39 million people around the world that are blind or the 240 million or so people globally that have a visual impairment?

What are they able to find in their lack of physical vision?
It can be possible to find more in a world full of visual distortions that many sighted may believe. The information that the brain receives and makes up ideas about the world is not made up of the cluster of atoms that lays before a person alone but collects information from alternative senses. Focusing on the touch, smell, sound and taste of the world around them, allows a different dimension of experiencing the world so nothing is ever lost. With intuition being a guiding light for finding your own place in the world, living on the path of truth is always possible. When a voice from years ago triggers your memory to awaken and remembers every detail about the person that you can no longer see but hear in front of you, you enter the time machine of happiness.

Sensing a quiver in a voice as soon as it appears, you connect with that emotion in an instant and do whatever needs to be done. The beauty of neuro plasticity means that working memory can increase with sight loss which overcompensates for the smaller visual region in the brain. Listening to auditory echoes and changes in temperature’s in closed off and open spaces allows the person with sight loss to be able to keep safe and accident free. The insight gains that can come from sight loss will never make up for fully functioning vision, but they allow a person to view the world in a whole new light.

The sighted and sight loss world are separated by the bridge of vision. Whichever side of the bridge of sight you live on, there will be many loses and gains. It is up to you, which way you want to interpret the world so chose carefully and live the best life that you can as your world is as perfect as you make it.

World Book Day Evolution

Tags

Blind, Books, Life lessons, Love, Sight Loss, Thanks, Worldbookday, Writing

It must have looked weird. A blind woman being led by her guide dog walking around the books shop, but it just had to be done.

As the guide dog whipped past the cookery books, travelled through the sci-fi section and ended up in the land of the fun-filled children’s books, the owner rewarded him with a treat. He had guided her to the place that she missed the most. From Willy Wonka to The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, books had always been fun companions during her childhood and had always left her wanting more. Along with millions of other children, she loved to escape into books of all types and feel like it was just the author and the reader that were in this alternative reality. Life lessons that trickled from the pages of each book, cleansed her mind from the negatives in the world and broadened her consciousness to what humanity was really about.

Even back then she could not really see the words clearly. There had always been a hazy double vision around words, but she had developed her own fun way of dealing with it. She learnt to read by a method of deduction. A five-lettered word that had a hazy straight line and a fuzzy small hump attached lower down was obviously a h and a slanted blur that extended lower than the other letters was obviously a y. With 2 similar looking 3rd and 4th letters that were seen in double vision, the letter could be nothing else but ‘happy’. As the years passed, she began to rely less on her eyes to see and more on her brain to decide what these words were in front of her. She read at a rapid pace and could not get enough of the author’s voice that came alive in the treasured books.

Time passed and reading books got more and more difficult. Even the ‘sniff it to see’ rule that she had always lived by, where she held the book close to her nose, no longer worker so a plan B was needed. Magnifier’s and other aids from the low vision clinic could no longer help but technology came to the rescue. Audiobooks, e-books with narration and screen readers on laptops all made it possible to remain an avid book worm. Even dabbling in a bit in braille meant that there were no barriers to becoming one with an author again. Reading to another however, was something that she really did miss. Reading large print books with her children as they grew, allowed her to ‘sniff to see; and memorise the books after reading them a couple of times. She now wanted to do this with her sweet 3-year-old granddaughter and thanks to modern day Apps on her phone, she was able to know what the books said and memorize them to read back to her beautiful little angel. Life was blissful again.

Standing in the colourful corner of the book shop where dinosaurs popped out of books and glitter from the exquisite cover left magic on the fingers and heart of the reader, she stood happy in the blur of fuzzy colour that awaited her. Pulling out her phone to use technology to be able to identify what she was looking at, she choose a new book for her granddaughter. Her guide dog patiently waited and sniffed some adventures out to help the best he could. In six months-time, their book would be in a similar joy filled labyrinth of a bookshop which was such a strange but warm feeling. People would soon know how special Munch the guide dog really was and discover what he was really like. The mischief makers secrets would be out and hopefully spread a little happiness to the reader. Stories are always the most powerful when shared.

Here’s to wishing that stories will continue to be spread in a variety of different ways that allows accessibility to all. Thank you to each author that changes the lives of people that they may never meet in person but will always be connected through meetings of the souls.