The Eyes Have It

Eyes are perhaps the most interesting feature on one’s face. They come in different colors, different sizes, and with this incredible ability to communicate without ever saying a word. Whose mother didn’t have “that look,” you know, the one that told you that you had just done something terribly wrong and were going to be in a butt-load of trouble once she got you home. Eyes convey so much that we find it difficult to imagine life without them.

I can’t begin to describe how it felt when one morning, exactly three years ago, when I woke up and everything was a blur. I washed my face twice, then three times. I used saline drops. I cleaned my glasses no fewer than a dozen times. Nothing I did changed the fact that might eyesight was severely diminished. I was scared. Fortunately, thanks to the eventual cataract surgery in both eyes, the end result was positive; I see better now than I ever have.

My brother has it much worse. He was born legally blind, never crawled as a baby, and couldn’t walk until he had glasses, which back in 1966 was far from an easy thing to achieve. He grew up in a world where the boundaries of an object were always blurred, where depth perception was uncertain, especially in moving objects, and the success or failure of any activity  depended upon the degree to which his glasses got in the way. However, not being able to see well enough for sports led him directly to strong math skills and becoming one of the best software engineers I’ve known.