In sights

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~Marcel Proust

When teaching, if I dared to remove my glasses to wipe them or rub my eyes, my 2nd graders called out for me to put them back on quick!

They were not having it even after explaining to them that this was what I genuinely looked like. I had betrayed them by suddenly not looking like the person they recognized and trusted. I didn’t take it too personally, but I did have dreams (starting in 7th grade) of what life might be like to not need to wear equipment to correct this handicap.
 
I remember how my mother and her siblings fought over whether my grandma should wear her glasses in the coffin. She had firmly said that she had “worn those damn things her whole life” and she didn’t want them on her face for another minute.

Still, in the end, the living won out because, just like the 2nd graders, they didn’t recognize her without them.

When I learned about 12 years ago that I had inherited an eye condition that would eventually lead to blindness, I pushed that reality aside to deal with until it became unavoidable. That day is here. What that means, besides my vision is starting to go so I can’t even depend on my glasses, is that I have had a laser bore a hole in my eye to relieve pressure so that I can undergo a corneal transplant with natural tissue from a generous donor which includes having an air bubble inserted in my eye to hold everything in place (which means lying horizontal for at least 24 hours after surgery), enjoy a 1-3 month recovery using drops to discourage a rejection of the tissue, then update the lens in my glasses to match what I will then see (or not), then start all over on the other eye…both of which may last for 15 years or so, if I’m lucky.

This has got me thinking about seeing: what we see, how we see, other ways to “see”, and who we really are when even someone else’s tissue can not offer up (or rejects) a new lease on these windows to our world.

Saying “I see” is often another way of saying we understand. But what do we “see” when we can’t actually see? Can we still understand? What I do know is I will come to appreciate these glasses that I have broken, cursed, and maligned for so long. I will also be grateful and amazed for being gifted someone else’s tissue to “see” me through. I also hope to gain a small understanding of those who have no choice in the matter and live rich lives every day without any visual aid.

In sight

For twelve years I waited to go blind afflicted with the last thing my father left me, 

a degenerative condition that could only be treated by scraping my corneas and inserting someone else’s tissue hoping I might see what they no longer could. A red laser down through the delicate layers drilled a permanent hole through each eye. 

Laid flat, the scraping and replacing began. Then the crawl to the car as inverted 

and horizontal as possible to go home and stay flat so the air bubble holding the tissue in place wouldn’t reject me. Prepared with an impressive queue of audible books, instead I fell into blinding darkness to dream of naked roots plunging out of seeds deep into dirt:

harsh reality

diving me down into depths

of what’s left of me

father of heartache

left me alone in the dark

to dream of seedlings

forced into shadows

alone with my inner sights

an invitation in

swells of inner sight

seed coats slipped away

shady adventure

dena parker duke

Revised poem from Signs & Psalms by Dena Parker Duke

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