A Day in the Life of a Blind Man

Move over, Milton. These days, the daughters (or the wife) can't be expected to laboriously copy out your every dictated word, and the servants joined the union. Let's watch a bit, make like voyeurs into Tom's world, a world that, like Milton's, must be navigated by fingers and ears, faith and grit. We'll watch my husband tackle some of the ordinary chores of living.

 

He sets the alarm by listening, one number at a time; then checks to be sure he has the correct time—a.m. or p.m.? Alarm, CD, or radio? Did he get the alarm button or did he accidentally hit the time? He checks all of the above, patiently listening to the clock: "Hour setting, 5, 6:00. It's 6:00 a.m. Minute setting, 0, minute 5, minute 10, minute 15, alarm off, it's 6:15 a.m. Alarm on, it's 6:15 a.m."

 

Morning; he shuts off the alarm and moves toward the bathroom, but dammit, the kids left a Lego block on the floor—ouch! Flinching at the pain in the arch of his foot, he bangs his nose on the bathroom door. And he hasn't even peed yet. True, anyone can fall prey to renegade Legos and diabolical doors, but for the blind, these petty frustrations become routine. Continuing through the rest of his morning ablutions: take a shower (what's the difference between liquid soap and shampoo, between shampoo and conditioner, between shaving cream and hair mousse?); get dressed (pants to the left of the tie hanger, tie hung around shirt, shirt hung next to pants, isn't that how you decide what to wear to work?); have some coffee (pour to finger, burn finger, rinse finger); eat breakfast (instant oatmeal again, it has more flavor than dry toast and is easier than trying to land the butter in the right place). Oh, and the dog requires morning ablutions as well, because s/he, too, must be socially acceptable.

 

Before our Peeping Tom day ends, countless other obstacles will bedevil him—a laundry basket trips him up as he gets the dog's dishes; the dog has diarrhea; the secretary is sick; the meeting has been moved to a cramped room across campus, in an unfamiliar building; construction blocks the dog's usual grassy area for doing business….

 

You get the picture. Do you really, though? Let's take a little trip, say to a conference in Any City, U.S.A. He gets out at the curb, engaging a bellhop to carry his suitcase, in which the professional clothes are meticulously arranged to avoid wearing the black shirt with the navy blazer, or the brown jacket with the gray suit pants. Remember, he has only one hand free, the other one is working a dog. "Find the counter," he tells the dog. Alas, the dog goes to the wrong counter, so someone leads the duo to the registration desk. "Follow!" is the dog's command, this time a bit curt. Tom produces his hotel confirmation, credit card, etc. He then asks for a couple of pieces of Scotch tape, and requests help finding a grassy spot for the dog's relief area. Tape? Grass? Not on your list of travel necessities? The tape goes on the cardkey for the door, so that he can feel which way to insert the card; another piece goes on the door itself, so that he can be sure he's trying to open the right door. And then there's the grass, always the best part. In San Francisco, the nearest grass was six blocks from the conference hotel. In Anaheim, there was a four-foot square gravel area near a utility hook-up. In St. Louis, we found a tree in a pot—the dog jumped into the pot(ty?) and could just exactly squat, hitting the mulch most of the time.

 

Over the years, Tom has developed a philosophical sense of humor, necessary to maintain sanity and smooth his bumpy path through life. He quips one-liners to the travel professionals whose job it is to ensure that he finds the restroom (or the grassy area), gets on the right airplane, figures out the various routes to and from meeting rooms. He jokes easily and frequently with students, colleagues, and assorted strangers, helping those around him to be more comfortable with his blindness. The guide dog—intelligent, dignified, clean, alert—the dog helps bridge the awkward spaces, too. The two of them, dog and man, smile bravely and believably, if sometimes through gritted teeth. Yet there remains a subterranean frustration, helplessness, even humiliation, in needing assistance
for everyday activities, activities most of us take for granted.

 

Blindness doesn't prevent one from leading a rich, joyful, varied life filled with those universal human energizers that keep us going: love, faith, optimism, hope, fun. And yet, in Dr. Nelson's darkly honest words, "Blindness is a grievous disability." Difficult to hear. Even more difficult to live. In our politically-correct world, where we like to pretend that all differences are surface-level only and that all obstacles can be surmounted with a little Yankee ingenuity, disability in general and blindness in particular present a unique challenge.

In the Beginning

In the Beginning

Everyone recognized Dr. Nelson. A political science professor at Southern Illinois University, the man was a campus fixture, kind and gentlemanly, impeccably dressed. We marveled at the dignity and ease with which he and his guide dog navigated the hilly, wooded campus. He was exotic, intriguing, Other. He was conspicuous.

This was in the late 1970s. Fast-forward to Dr. Nelson’s Ball State counterpart and my husband of 29 years, Dr. Tom Weidner. When we married at the ripe old age of 21, we both knew he had a slowly progressive eye disease, but the potential that he could become blind, the ramifications of living day-to-day with a disability, these were merely Star Trek holograms, no more real than old age or parenthood. By 1993, Tom was a full professor and well-established scholar, father of three lively children. And he was blind—I found myself married to the man everyone recognized, the guy with the dog. I took refuge in memories of Dr. Nelson’s classy attitude and demeanor. I wrote him a letter, and he responded with a stark honesty that gives me pause still: “Blindness is a grievous disability.”

Wait a minute! Excuse me, sir, but that’s the wrong answer. You’re supposed to tell me how utterly normal and ordinary you are, how your life is just like everyone else’s, how the dog gets you everywhere you want to go. You’re supposed to make me feel better, gild the disability, paste on a smiley face.

Grievous? As in loss? The relentless pain of the not-there? Well, yes.

Blindness is relentless. Beth Finke, a Chicago-based commentator for National Public Radio, states, “People think… that everything’s okay now, that I’ve ‘overcome’ my blindness. But it’s just not true. The only people who conquer disabilities are those who are cured. The rest of us…live with our disabilities, not despite them.”

It sounds so deceptively simple, so positive, so politically correct: “living with disabilities.” To quote Finke again, “On good days, I think of this as a blessing: Not everyone gets a chance to live life from such completely different perspectives. On bad days, I grieve.”[1] That word again, with its connotations of burden and heaviness and pain.

Despite the magic of computers and other adaptive technologies; despite beautiful, polite, dependable guide dogs; despite the rebellious, resilient human spirit; despite intellectual or marital status; despite elaborate coping mechanisms and soul-deep joie de vivre, people’s lives are diminished by blindness.

I’m not saying that blind people don’t lead full, productive, joyful lives. Of course they do—any cursory internet search turns up all sorts of successful blind folks (Beth Finke, for example, or Tom Weidner. Homer, John Milton, Ray Charles). What I am saying is that we tend to gloss over, ignore, paint in pretty colors the difficulties that just plain do attend blindness.

[next time: watch "overcoming blindness" from the sidelines]

[1] Used by permission. Quoted from Beth Finke’s radio essay “Christopher Reeve’s Legacy for the Disabled,” available at http://www.bethfinke.com/media.html. Ms. Finke’s gracious, astute comments concerning blindness, guide dogs, fashion, and whatever else is on her mind can be found there as well.

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent

E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,

I fondly ask; But patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need

Either man's work or His own gifts, who best

Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and waite.

(John Milton,1608-1674, c. 1652)

Milton was a fire-eater, surely lacking any trace of 21st Century post-modern sensitivity. He campaigned tirelessly for the execution of assorted papist heretics, including clergy of all stripes and even the King himself. Milton probably attended the public execution of Charles—perhaps not your emblem of empathy.

But man’s fire cannot be satisfied by ink alone. Johny married 17 year old Mary when he was 34; but she left—fled—within a few weeks, and he turned his poison pen toward relaxing divorce laws. Her family, loyal to that lousy idol-worshiping Catholic king, sent her back to Milton. I wonder how much say young Mary got? She bore him two children, a boy and a girl, then died a few days after the daughter was born. The little boy died the following month, and within the year, John Milton was completely blind.

Four years later, he married Katherine, and I don’t know how old she was, but she died a year after their marriage, in childbirth (another daughter for John). In 1656, 54 years old, still blind, this brilliant, passionate man married for the last time, to 24 year old Elizabeth, who outlived him by 50 years (shades of Anna, the prophet in the temple where Jesus was dedicated?).

John Milton must have had a great deal of personal magnetism, a spark of fun to go with the intellect, a glimmer, perhaps, of spiritual depth belied by the rigid outer persona. I don’t care much for him, really, or for his black-and-white world view. And yet, he is venerated, practically sanctified, along with Chaucer and Shakespeare, by word nerds through the ages.

His magnum opus, Paradise Lost, required reading for English majors everywhere, is a staple in the Dead White Guy canon of Western literature. And I suspect many have used the last line of this sonnet to whip reluctant kids to action, as my dad used to do, barbed tongue firm in his cheek, whenever we were not being as industrious as he thought we needed to be.

I'd bet ol' Johny was a curmudgeon, though. I don't envy his women--or his children.

[If you are interested in more of me and less of Milton, stay tuned. I know a thing or two about living with a blind man...]