Blind

Have you ever thought about how it must feel like to be blind? Knowing all the time that there is so much to be seen, and you just... just... can't! Try to blind yourself for a day, and go ahead, for how long can you handle? Can you wake up without watching the time on your digital clock? How easy can you tune your favourite radio station? What about drinking? will you stuck your finger in the glass to know when to stop pouring water into it? Think, my friend. You won't watch TV, you won't play videogames, you won't read a book (Braille ones are really hard to find, believe me), damn, you won't even be able to use this computer you are sitting in front of right now! All the links have been broken, you can't receive information anymore! How can you deal with that? I have worked with a speciall class for blind kids when I was 13. I usually stayed there between classes, and on mid-morning break. There were a couple of girls of about 8, both blind. A friend of mine, a kid from my neighbourhood, of about 10 or 11, who was rapidly losing his vision. Another 3 or four of them, all from different ages, and origins. The teacher was not blind, but had serious vision issues as well. I would help them preparing the paper, and after some time, teaching the smaller ones how to write in Braille, which I had learned by then. It was a great experience, to help them out. But it is very sad to see such young people losing the ability to see. I don't understand why, but it is a fact that things happening to children always sound worse than when they happen to adults. I still see those milky blue eyes, almost lifeless, looking straight ahead, completely unsuitable in those happy faces when they read a new story or learned something new. I owe them a lot. They gave me the vision of life that my perfectly-working eyes could not.