“I can and I will, watch me.”
I remember hearing those words, hanging in the air for what seemed like hours. I didn’t know what to say when my mom told me she was going blind.
I had no idea what to think about it. I couldn’t even utter whatever words I was about to say. I felt tears in my eyes, I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t know what I wanted. I couldn’t think straight, I don’t know what straight was. My face felt hot, I tried to wipe the tears away from my eyes. No matter how much I try the tears are endless. My mom couldn’t stop looking at me, she knew this would be one of the last times she would actually see me with her eyes. That didn’t help, it just added more tears. Too many tears for me to handle. She tried to hug me, to hold me, to tell me everything was going to be ok. I backed away. It was more of a hop. I backed away so hard and fast I fell on my back and hit my head on the carpet. Luckily it was only carpet, but I still walked away with a pulsing headache. I was scared. I thought if I didn’t accept it that it would all go away. All my mom could do was look through her tears at her son too scared to touch her. I don’t know how much time passed, but, I finally found words to describe what I was feeling or at least I thought I did. It became easier to talk but harder to form words. I still couldn’t accept it. My mom told me I would have to take care of the house now. All of the chores and looking after my 5 year old nephew all while in the 6th grade. I didnt want to go to school. I wanted to stay home, I wanted to take care of her. She told me no, I can’t give up. So she made a deal with me, if I don’t give up then neither will she. I cried again while asking her how could you do anything when you can’t see. She told me, “I can and I will, watch me.”
I find it funny how little things in life can mess you up forever. It’s also dumb, life can be seen in many different ways but those ways not everyone can see. A deaf person can see the world completely different way from a blind person. Those two people could never see the world the same way and that’s what people call life. Life is what you make of it. What if you didn’t make your life the way you wanted it to be? What if life made you do things you didn’t want to do? Things are always put into categories: Good and Bad. How do you know what’s good and how do you know what’s bad? You only have society’s definition of what a good thing is and what a bad thing is. How do we know what’s fair? Is fair what a mass group of people say is right? So if one group of people says that killing animals is great does that make it right? The majority of the people say that killing animals is great then that would become the norm for the act of killing animals. In some cases people stand against the norm, stand for what they want to do not what everyone expects them to do. Those people are the ones with the power, the potential to set new norms. Better norms equals better people to a better world. With this new world there would be no such question regarding giving up or not. The only question will be how much time will it take to get it done.
