I invited Leela to speak about using all senses in creative endeavors: light, sound, touch, taste, smell, and possibly the most important sense: intuition. That gut feeling. That unexplained knowing.
Leela is an expert in using all senses because she lost the most important sense: sight. In her twenties, a car accident, an injury, and hospitalization, revealed a deeper problem: a growth caused by an autoimmune disease that eventually took her sight.
Leela has been blind for eleven years.
Leela mostly looks forward. She waves away the past with a short phrase so as not to give it an anchor to the rest of her life. She briefly admits, "At first it was really hard."
Her sight left gradually and when there was just a sliver left, she would bend down to her four year old daughter's height and with that sliver of sight left, she would hold onto her daughter's face--to memorize what belonged to her but would shortly be taken away.
I try to imagine a newly unsighted woman with only a white cane, boarding Trax to the city, to learn braille and dependance on everything but sight. I see her, putting on a brave face, moving forward as she taps sidewalks, stairs, and doors not knowing whether to push or to pull. My heart aches, my heart swells. For her. For all she is up against, for all she has conquered, for how she makes me feel weak with a lifetime of sight.
Yet we all have our loss-of-vision challenge. Vision has a much broader meaning than seeing, and often the loss of vision of other aspects is greater than physical loss. I've seen loss of joy-vision when burdens overwhelm. I've seen loss of life-vision in a moment of discouragement. I've seen loss of integrity vision when it was easier to go along with the gang. I've seen lost of vision-faith when led astray by vain imaginings.
Leela is in part remarkable because eleven years later, she's thankful for the gains she's reached after a loss of such magnitude. She no longer sees light, but she's discovered the light within--yes, she can see different colors of light within herself. Intrigued, I ask her to explain, but it's a recent discovery, not yet fully understood, and she cannot put it into concrete words that capture.
Vision is more than what we see. Vision is hope. Holding on. Stamina. Repentance. Caring. Vision is love and all it can become.
Comments