"Both my parents were blind," she said and I was rivitted to attention.
I asked a lot of questions that were probably quite stupid. I wanted to know what it was to be a 'typical' child of 'exceptional' parents. She was patient with me answering all my questions. She suprised me by telling me that she had as many if not more problems with the cruelty of adults as she did with the cruelty of other children.
She wasn't allowed to take swimming lessons because her parents were blind. There's a connection I'll never understand.
She spoke both of the isolation felt by the family but also about the kindness of many in the community. She spoke with pride of her father who worked on the ADA and of his ability to manage his own in a crowd. "I think because because he couldn't see legislators they never managed to intimidate him."
"He had a saying," she told me, "It's the soul that sees."
And because the soul sees, he never felt his disability. She said that neither parent talked much about their blindness they just got on with it. "They were just mom and dad, they weren't 'the blind people who live in my house.'"
I asked her what she learned from her parents.
"I learned to see people - not disabilities - people."
I guess her pop was right ... 'its the soul that sees."
I have a choice, don't I?
ReplyDeleteIt's so easy to rely on what I see with my eyes. Or what I see through my own and/or society's stereotypes. Or through the labels presented on a one-sided report.
Or I can choose to disregard all that and see through my soul.
What an attitude-changing thought. Thanks, Dave.
It wasn't particularly surprising to me to learn that the attitudes of adults was as much or more of a problem than the attitudes of other children. After all, able-bodied adults often don't know much more about disabilities than able-bodied children. BUT, it is the adults who have the power to create nuisances, or barriers, for children.
ReplyDeleteA tangentally related story that I read somewhere once about a hearing daughter of deaf parents. As she grew older, she answered the phone for those occasional random voice calls. One day (when she was a teenager I think), someone called and asked to speak with her parents. She calmly explained that they were deaf, and could they please explain to her what they wanted and she could help communicate that to them. The person on the other end of the line said, "Oh, I'll call back later," and hung up. They didn't seem to grasp the concept that, er, her parents would STILL BE DEAF!