Today is the four-year anniversary of my vision loss. As much as I am keeping extra busy today and trying not to think about it, it’s at the forefront of my mind. I was wondering to myself this morning why it is that dates have so much power over us? The good ones – birthdays, weddings, holidays – we are taught to celebrate but I don’t remember ever receiving guidance on what to do on the dates marking a death or other devastating event. Like all things we experience in life, everyone reacts differently: some are able to give the month and the number on the calender no attention while others acknowledge it in their own way. For instance, since my mother’s death, I begin her birthday with a cup of coffee, in the “MOM” mug I kept for her in my home, while sitting in her beach chair in my back yard.
I wouldn’t even know how to recognize November 28th and maybe that’s the problem. On one optic nerve, that day four years ago I could see nothing and now I have some vision. Yet on the other optic nerve, on November 26, 2012 I was fully sighted and driving home from work. That would be the last time I would be behind the wheel. And although I am grateful I don’t live in complete darkness, my most prevalent thought and feeling is of the first 47 years of my life when I had it all.
There doesn’t seem to be a way around these milestone markers and like every one of our days we get through it the only way we can: with the love and support of others, doing the best we can, making someone’s own day better and being kind to ourselves. Although these intensified twenty-four-hour-periods cannot be considered or compared to the other days in a lifetime, I promise you and myself the day after is.
On this date in my history, my life changed forever. No matter what happens from here on in, this date will be forever an exceptionally significant imprint on my timeline. Whether it stays in the top three, ironically, remains to be seen.
