Haley Dowell

Ms. Gardner
English 10H Period 4
20 January 2015
Blind
What happened to your eye? The iris was rimmed with red. I fell, her response was
typical. My grandmother always gave the excuse that she got injuries from falling: I tripped
over the step, I didnt see that there was an extra step, so I fell, It was the damn dogs again.
Those idiots always walk behind me when I am trying to move. It was her easiest and most
plausible excuse, but for some reason, I didnt believe her. Vision was never my grandmothers
strength: Cataracts had plagued her and she was only a year or two away from being classified as
legally blind. I tried imagining myself becoming blind, and being able to capture bursts of
inspiration. Flick Flick. Like the Hubble capturing bursts of gamma ray energy in one click of
the lens my eyes retain everything I have experienced. My eyes hold everything I have ever seen
and compartmentalized it into my mind and my thoughts.The things I take in from the world
around me, wouldnt be able to influence me or repeatedly scar me. I watched my grandma mozy
around her house, her bloodied eye flicking back and forth, FLICK FLICK. In my eyes not being
able to see was a weakness, I reconsidered.
My friend Sarah and I walked in through the door after a painfully long day of school.
My dad was mesmerized by a tiny, blond woman on Fox News, which was an oddity. The news
is never on midday except for the occasional food show and talk shows about cheaters. Sit
down and watch, he instructed. As we watched, I realized what they were reporting was
horrific and terrible. I read the headliner, Twenty children and six staff members killed in Sandy

Hook shooting. The words were potent, the words were caustic, they permeated my eyes and
made their way to my brain. The image of children getting murdered at the peak of their youth
played itself over and over again in my minds eye, FLICK FLICK. The days following the
massacre I became vigilant, and paranoia crept in front of every classroom. What was I going to
see that day that would change my mind about the world around me? How was my innocence
going to be stabbed today? What was the world going to gouge out of me this time my heart, my
soul, my eyes? The little cameras attached to my brain, I felt would disintegrate at any moment.
They would disperse in a fine black dust as the deceit, the hate, the rage flowered and infiltrated
my young psyche. If I closed my eyes would it all just fade into oblivion?
I was 13 when I saw that news story, and that was not the first I saw of the world at its
worst. My grandma had seen a good share of the worlds bigger mistakes. She lived through a
couple wars, seen plenty of hate crimes, and had watched many deadly revolutions. How could I
say I have seen a lot, when compared to my grandma? Her eyes, her heart, her soul had already
been gouged out by the world too many times to count. Maybe the world was gifting her with
never having to picture a single thing ever again. Being blind did take away her privilege of
driving, and her ability to be independent. My family didnt want to see her take a nasty spill
again; however, she has fallen three times since becoming a dependent. Who needs independence
when you dont have to watch the same recurring horror story unfold over and over again?
A year or two after my grandma hurt her eye I finally learned the truth behind my
grandma's fall. I guess my grandmother had told my mom that she remembers one of her
neighbors coming to her door. She remembers the neighbor coming in, then getting hit in the
face, and waking up with a puddle of rosy blood beneath her cheek. That horrific image
disturbed me, and it replayed itself, FLICK FLICK. I tried closing my eyes maybe I could erase

the image from my mind and it would be gone for good. I wanted to gouge my eyes out. My eyes
were cameras after all, but I couldnt understand why I couldnt delete what I saw. It should be as
easy as that, right?
My grandma does not agree with me that being blind is a gift. She absolutely
hates not being able to drive or be by herself. Eyes are important to the human body, and they
help guide us throughout our lives. Are eyes a gift though? After all eyes enable us to see horrid
and grotesque objects, events, and people. If we didnt have eyes we wouldnt be exposed to
outside forces. Humans would be pure and innocent without eyes just like defenseless children.
Of course, life being the way it is the eyeless people would have to be mowed down by a man
with a Bushmaster that attains the illusion of vision. The illusion that his eyes see all the wrong
in the world and the only way to make the world right is by eliminating the pure, innocent,
defenseless, eyeless people. According to Dictionary.com the definition of eye is:
The organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in
an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera,
surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or
cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the
retina.
What would those little gamma-ray light bursts of inspiration be if we couldnt see? To see is a
privilege and a burden that is carried throughout life. Being blind prevents the human from
seeing horror, but where would we be without the ability to see the little beauty that is offered in
this world. The little bursts of beauty and passion is what keeps the eyes from disintegrating. The
human eye will prevail over the tug of horrors like the Hubble telescope prevails against the pull
of gravity.