This was originally posted on May 28, 2016, at 4:43 PM on Blogger.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
“Do you want some?” I’m asked, as a bowl is thrust into my hands.<\/p>\n
“What is it?” I reply, a little startled.<\/p>\n
“Just eat it.”<\/p>\n
For a fully-sighted person, or simply someone with better vision than mine, they might be able to make a guess as to the contents of the bowl. I, however, do not possess enough vision to do this. So I ask again, and am met with:<\/p>\n
“You don’t want it?”<\/p>\n
“Well, I don’t know what it is.”<\/p>\n
At this point, I’m either told, with great irritation what it is, or it’s taken away to be offered again later, with an agitated explanation of what it is.<\/p>\n
“Here, smell this.” She might say sometimes, quickly brushing something beneath my nose.<\/p>\n
I lift my hand to hold it, figure out what it is, and position it better for optimal sniffing, but my hand is pushed aside.<\/p>\n
“Just smell it.”<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Those, my darling readers, weren’t the actions of some ignorant person on the street. But, rather, the actions of my ignorant mother. It sounds harsh, I know, but it is truth. The incidents above have been happening for as long as I can remember.<\/p>\n
It’s happened a few times with other people, maybe not strangers but family members I don’t know as well. Perhaps they view it as a sort of game. I don’t. And if I express any discontent, it’s never met with understanding, at least from my mother.<\/p>\n
The vignettes above are only two examples of her… lack of understanding, I guess. It’s a phrase you probably wouldn’t expect from the parent of a legally blind person. But it’s more common than you might think.<\/p>\n
With regard to some things, my father’s understanding and approach to my vision is better than my mother’s: he’s always pushed for me to ask for Braille menus at restaurants (an early form of advocacy), he used to describe the placement of my food as though the plate were a clock face (I always forget to ask where he learned that), and, as I discovered on Thursday, he agrees with my attitude and is entertained by the encounters I have with strangers. That last is was discovered during a conversation we-my mother, father, godfather, and I-had on our drive home from my dorm. I was regaling them with tales of people grabbing my arm at street corners, or grabbing my arm and insisting that I sit on public transportation, or grabbing my arm… well, this could go on for a while. But the conversation had started after my mom had expressed embarrassment when I asked for a Braille menu in the restaurant we’d gone to. She’d said it once in the restaurant, and then again in the car. It always embarrassed her when I did it, she said, to which my father responded: “she’s entitled to it.”<\/p>\n
She also expressed “embarrassment” at my responses to strangers. When I tell someone I don’t need help, or that I don’t wish to be prayed for. She feels I should just go with it. They mean well. I should know when to ask for help, there was nothing wrong with that. She didn’t want to acknowledge, however, that there was a difference between soliciting assistance and being offered it, often forcefully, regardless of whether or not I need it.<\/p>\n