At the coffeehouse I frequent, a woman asked me to watch her MacBook while she went to the restroom. She had set her things up at a table across the room from where I sat and I could barely see her things. I would, however, be able to make out someone approaching her “desk” so I wasn’t promising something I couldn’t keep. I said, “Sure”, and let the irony of the moment wash over me.
Although my vision is profoundly impaired, she did not know it and she saw something in me she trusted. I know my lack of sight should not define me but, really, how can it not? If you meet me for the first time and we spend more than a few minutes talking, it will come up. It’s one of the first things I will share with you about myself. I’m repeatedly told you can’t tell by looking at me and that I maintain eye contact even though mine can’t see yours. But on the off-chance I seem to be staring at your nose, I want you to nose why. It was refreshing to be identified as nothing more than the good person I try to be . . . and nothing less. Certainly by a stranger, but even more so by myself.
