In the past, I’ve written about some aspects of my life including my job search and acquiring a guide dog. I wanted to write a little about two people who have been there for me since the day I was born: my parents.
I am one of two children. I have an older brother and when we were growing up, it was him and I along with our parents. We did everything together as a family and even though we argued from time to time, we still basically got along.
When I was in elementary school, the Board of Education and Services for the blind allowed me to participate in low vision evaluations. My parents would bring me to a local optometrist who was approved by BESB to conduct such evaluations. We would all sit down together and first discuss what my goals were in school and at home in an effort to best figure out what devices or glasses would work best. At that time, my father worked nights and my mother worked days. My mother was more involved in helping me pick devices to help me in school and my father was involved in finding things to help me outdoors. I recall that my father helped me pick out some monoculars that I could take in the car, to my brother’s baseball games and on school field trips. My mother helped me pick out hand held magnifying devices to help me with reading school textbooks and other school related items.
In January of 1980, my parents began to show us exciting brochures of Disney World in Orlando, Florida. For the next 6 months, they talked about this wonderful vacation that we were all going to experience. They talked about us kids flying in an airplane for the first time, going to Disney’s Magic Kingdome, experiencing Sea World and many other exciting aspects of this family vacation.
Finally, our trip was upon us. During this trip, my father would frequently carry me on his shoulders so that I was tall enough to see things up close. He put me on his shoulders to show me the huge selection of cuckoo clocks at the Magic Kingdom and he carried me around the park on his shoulders when I refused to walk.
A few years later, my father changed his work schedule so that he was able to spend time with us in the back yard after school. My favorite thing to do with dad at that time was to have him pitch the baseball to me so that I could practice hitting it with the baseball bat. He would stand close enough for me to see the ball and this worked out well. Unfortunately, as I got older, I would hit the ball harder, and at times he would get hit in the shins and this became painful for him. But, he still enjoyed it as much as me.
As I got older, some of the assignments in school required a lot more reading on my part. One year, my teacher required students to write a book report once a month. I would pick out a book from the library and my parents would read it with me. Some evenings, my mother would read to me and other evenings, my father would read with me. We all worked on my reading skills together. Thinking back, this was a lot of fun, we would laugh together and talk about the stories together. This made it easier to write the book reports and it was a nice thing to do with my parents.
When I was in the third grade, I decided to take piano lessons. After visiting the mall’s music store, my parents signed me up to take lessons with their teacher. She was a quiet spoken woman who had long black hair. I don’t think she had much experience teaching because after a short time, my parents decided to find a different teacher. The new teacher was a very funny gentleman who enjoyed the piano a great deal. He found some music books with bold, black print, making it easier for me to read and every time he assigned me a new piece, he would play it for me so I could hear how it should sound. My parents always brought me to my weekly lessons. Instead of dropping me at the lesson, they sat with me and participated as well. If my mother couldn’t make it to a lesson, my father would participate. If my father was not available, my mother participated.
Years later, when I interviewed at Western Connecticut State University as part of their admissions process, my parents accompanied me through the interview. We took a tour of the campus, met the meteorology teacher and met with the admissions staff. When I moved into my dorm room, my parents packed up the car with supplies and helped me get settled into my new surroundings. Every time I came home for semester breaks, my parents were there to help me move my belongings and they were there if I needed anything throughout my college career.
After graduation, I participated in many interviews, as you read about in an earlier article. My father drove me to every interview and we talked about the interviews on the way home. When I was employed at Vision Dynamics, I began teaching people to use computers with adaptive software, such as JAWS for Windows, Window-Eyes and Zoom text. My father was always available to drive me to each person’s home and he would enjoy meeting the people and sitting through their lessons. One student insisted on making coffee for him and her husband. After the lesson, he told me that the coffee was worse than mud.
Currently, I am employed at the CT Institute for the Blind / Oak Hill. When I had my interview, my parents took me shopping to help me pick out a new suit and new clothes for the job. My father drove me to and from the interview. After the interview ended, I had to come back for a second interview. My father drove me again and when I was hired that day, I sent for him so I could share the good news and he was very proud.
I lived several towns from this new job so this meant that I would have to take 2 busses in the morning to get to work and 3 busses to get home in the evenings. It all worked out to about 4 hours a day for the commute. If there was bad weather and or traffic, the busses would run late and sometimes I would miss a connection. All of the staff here at Oak Hill were tremendously supportive. They knew all of the bus routes and if I had to call them, they always knew exactly where I was and could pick me up and get me to and from work.
Each morning I would get up at 5:00AM and leave my condo at 6:15 AM to begin the daily commute to Hartford. The bus schedule was such that I could not get to the commuter parking lot by taking a bus. My father had to get up and come from his house to my condo and drop me off at the commuter lot each day. This was the only way I could get to this lot to get the first bus up to Hartford. It didn’t matter what the weather was doing, he was always there on time ready to help me.
After a while, an apartment on the campus of Oak Hill became available. I decided to sell my condo and move to campus. My parents were there yet again to help me move here and get settled. My mother helped me pick out window curtains and blinds and my father helped me paint the apartment.
Throughout my career, I’ve met many other people who are visually impaired or blind and I’ve always been shocked at how many people are not fortunate to have parents to help them. I heard a story once of a person who was blind and they needed assistance organizing things in their apartment. I asked if their mother or father would be helping them. They said that they had to find a volunteer to help them because their parents didn’t want to travel from the shore to their area to help them. Whenever I hear these kinds of stories, it just reminds me of how thankful I am to have the blessing of parents who have made it a point to be so helpful to me through my life.