I never forget that I’m blind. I think about it all the time. One time, a guy asked if I felt lonely because I didn’t have anybody to talk to. I said, “To tell you the truth, no I don’t. I feel more nervous when I have a lot of people here.” Sometimes I wish people would take off, so I could be by myself. I do my own cooking. I like beans mashed. I do my own housecleaning, and I hang my clothes outside. I vacuum my kitchen and bedroom. I mop with a little lick and a promise. I try to keep my house clean. That’s my motto: Keeping everything clean. 

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I’ve never felt ashamed or embarrassed to be blind. I had a very rare cancer, so I’ve never felt guilty. There are challenges. I have felt isolated sometimes because of my blindness. I’ve thought that if I could see, maybe people might be more accepting or open with me. Many times conversations are centered on how I read or how I get around, but they’re not interested in my life. It’s more like a curiosity.

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I don’t believe blindness is a disability because I am able to do things that I want to do. I am a pacific islander who just so happens to be blind and carries a white cane. I work in the food service industry as a Department of Defense contractor. I service our troops which I proudly do because they are out there risking their life for our freedom. Currently I have 43 employees.   

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I know how it feels to be sighted and to be blind. When I was sighted, I could see the world. And now that I’m completely blind, I just feel it, taste it. It’s just like stepping from one dimension to another. It’s just like me being bilingual. I could either speak to someone in Spanish or speak to someone in English. Blindness is a different language. I know both sides, dark and light.

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What I’m trying to say is that not everything is always going to be perfect. We’re all flawful. We all have room for improvement. There is an urgency to live while you can. I believe that no matter what you do, moderation is the key to maintaining yourself and maintaining your sanity. I can deal with some imperfections. Not every drum set is going to be in tune and not everyone is going to have duct tape. So, you got to work with what you have. It’s the only way that you’ll fulfill your purpose in life, without being spoon fed the baby food.

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In those early months of blindness, I had to relearn spatial relationships. I was walking with my mother one day near her home. It was a soundless and windless day. I experienced walking by a large ponderosa pine tree and hearing that it was next to me through my arm and my skin. Not through my ears, not through my eyes that didn’t work anymore, not through the smells or taste in the wind, but through my skin I heard it. I have no other way of describing it than hearing it through my skin. So the sensations started to come back to me in the realization that I’d always heard them. I’d always felt them. I’ve always smelled them, tasted them, touched them. But I’d always thought I’d seen them. I realized then, I could still see without seeing.

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Burns Taylor is a teacher, poet and essayist. He said, “My sister was probably the most important person in my life. One night we went outside. She took my hand and pointed it toward the evening star. We sang together, Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. That it was important to make a wish on a star. I couldn’t see and she gave me the faith to believe in myself and in the world around me.” Burn’s latest book — Hands Like Eyes, is a book of poems, songs and fantasies.

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If you had asked me if Weston was flawed when he was 6 months old, I might have said yes. Now at 8 years old, I feel like he’s more advanced than I am at 33. He’s perfect. I feel like I know Weston from the inside out. He’s what completes our family. He amazes me with his sense of compassion, his sense of sensitivity for the world. When a car goes by, “Why did that car sound different than ours?” If someone mentions there’s a rainbow in the sky, “What’s a rainbow? What does it look like?” He has a very light touch with the bottom part of his fingertips, just lightly touching things. He can sense when I’m standing nearby, even when I don’t think I’ve made a sound. He will know that I’m there, and he always has, even as a baby.

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I carved out a very humdrum, predictable, safe existence when I was a sighted person.  As a blind person you have to fight, and you have to be strong and confident. I feel more alive since I lost my eyesight. I don’t taste things more intensely than you do.  I just appreciate what I taste more than before.  Blindness has given me the opportunity to slow down and take the time to listen to what someone is saying. To listen to the person’s breath, their tone, and their pace. That will give you infinite clues about what is really going on.  

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I really like the cognitive therapy approach in my counseling practice. It focuses on our thought processes and how we can change them to view our situation differently. One discovery I made was Erik Erikson’s Developmental Theory. This theory describes the stages of development people go through from childhood to old age. It really resonated with me. I went through these development stages, adjusting to blindness—not as a child but as an adult. Re-learning trust. Learning to find your identity. When you lose your sight, you have to figure out who you are again— because life is different and what you do is different. 

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What bothers me most about how people use the word blind or blindness is that they usually have in their minds a stereotype of what it represents to them.  They are thinking about the limitations the inability the problems the obstacles. Sometimes it’s enfolded with a sense of pity or a sense of great admiration. And it should be neither.  I don’t want to be thought of as amazing Larry or poor Larry. I just want to be Larry.

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