I am the oldest of four children. My mother is legally blind, (and so was her mother). Growing up with a parent who is legally blind is not the same as growing up with a parent who can see.
When most people learn that someone is blind they assume that it means that the person cannot see anything at all. Being legally blind is not exactly what one might expect. People who are legally blind have some sight, but it is extremely limited. This was the case with both my mother, and my grandmother.
I became my mother’s eyes. She would bring me the food she was planning on preparing for dinner, and ask, “Is this still ok to eat?” She didn’t see well enough to notice the mold, or discolorations, that most people could identify at a glance. I could. So, it became my responsibility to decide if the food she selected was safe enough for the family to eat. One of my brothers has severe allergies. He needed to stay away from certain foods and food dyes. The information labels on packages of food is printed in extremely small type, which was too small for my mother to see. Again, I became her eyes, reading out loud the ingredients on the packages, so she could determine if the food was safe for my brother to eat. As I got older, I learned what to look for, and would just read it silently, before telling her my decision. It saved a little time.
All of my siblings learned to “chase” the pitcher when my mother poured us a drink. One of her eyes has almost no sight at all, which means she has no depth perception. She would pour where she thought the cup was at, and we would move the cup to wherever she thought that was. I don’t think any of us realized we were doing this until we were older.
Once, when I was about five years old, we were visiting my grandmother. She picked up a box of pins that she thought was securely closed. The box turned out to be nearly closed, and she ended up spilling pins all over a dark wood grain floor. I remember her standing perfectly still, and telling me to carefully go pick up the pins for her. I was the only one who could see them. When a glass would break, my mother would sweep up the large pieces, and then I would go in and make sure all the tiny shards were swept off the floor, before someone got hurt. I later learned that my classmates were forbidden from assisting with the same sorts of tasks that I had been doing for years.
My one form of revenge came at dusk, or twilight. Part of my mother’s condition includes “night blindness”, which means that as soon as it is dusk, she cannot see anything. She would call me to come in at night, and I would stand just out of her reach, silent, knowing that she could not see me there. None of my friends could do that trick with their parents!
Image by Sharat Ganapati on Flickr