To Be Blind

 

 As a person with -5.75 vision, I can relate to his blindness.  If I didn't wear glasses or if they didn't work for me, I would be considered legally blind.  You see, 20/200 is considered legally blind if nothing worked for them.  I am at about 20/575.   I told my roommate that if the fire alarm ever went off at night and I couldn't find my glasses for whatever reason, she would have to guide me around outside.  In the light, the globs of color every once in a while I will be able to see the change in them before the dip, hole, rock.  But in the dark, at night, I can't say that I will see any of that.

I would be able to read, at that vision strength, but only at a distance of about 3 to 6 inches.  Of course, the glasses and contacts do work for me so that I am not legally blind but I can relate to what he was talking about.  If I was legally blind, I can still see all spectrum of color.  I may not see the details in a painting or in a sweater design, but I would see how blue the ocean is without actually seeing the waves.  I would see how green the trees are if not the birds in them.  I would see the red of a t-shirt though I may not actually be able to read to decal.  I would see lots of colors, just not much of anything else.

This short story made me appreciate my sight more than I ever have before.  I already determined without modern day advances of medicines, I would probably be dead from all the sicknesses of my childhood or at least deaf from my long stretch of having a double ear infection when I was about one.  Now I know that I would be blind also without my glasses.  Borges saw the difficulties in his infirmity but he also saw that it didn't end there just like it didn't end there for Milton.  He may be blind, but he wasn't done with writing just yet.