BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

BE AWARE OF OTHERS' PROBLEMS

The following is not true:  I am in the hospital one leg chained up to the ceiling, both arms in slings, wrists broken, neck strapped for immovability, and in piss-poor condition overall.  I had stepped backwards, and this BIG dog "Lucky" had been laying right behind me. That was a dream.

OK, we do have a loving creature "Lucky", who is always, ALWAYS lurking right under or behind me.  It reminds me somewhat of life on the farm.

BACK TO 1935-1950

Animals--and we enjoyed the company of LOTS of them-- followed my father as if they were attached.  Wherever he walked went his entourage; dogs, cats, chickens, sometime one of the horses, and often in the mix was a favorite Guernsey heifer.  And he was never knocked down by any of those, He never tripped nor WAS tripped in that scenario.  

When my father fell down or was injured, it was usually a human mistake which preceded.  A door had been left ajar, a chair had been moved, a bucket (full of milk?) sat in the middle of an aisle in the barn, a wheelbarrel left sitting in an open doorway, a ladder had been moved or removed, a pitchfork had been left on the floor, prongs-up. You DO understand, right?  

Everything was measured in his brain, distances (how many steps) between the half-dozen barns, from one room to another, or to the door from a couch.  So if measurements were changed suddenly, chaos reigned in my father's life...like when the snows drifted.  He was utterly lost in a snowstorm.  Had not a clue which direction to go.  
He was, of course, blind. Blind meant "Blind" then.  (Years later the politically accepted word was "sightless", which included also those who could see, but not well.)

In his blindness he "saw" more then most of us.  But in his later deafness, he "heard" nothing except the incessant "cricket-like" sounds which affect the afflicted.  He accepted blindness, but deafness cut him off completely from society.  
 
We children learned early to be aware of others' problems, and have a healthy empathy for handicapped (challenged?) people.  I recall when some unthinking friends would take him by the arm and head for a door, where the Friend-Peep would walk through the door, letting blind Pop walk smack into a brick wall.

If you read this far, thank you for letting me share a glimpse of the early life of a drunk who finally left home at age 17 with a blurry vision of a perfect life with Early Times, Smirnoff, uppers and downers.  A drunk who walked with the swagger of an attitude of hatefulness, deathly fear, and whose only words were lies.

PEACE, today.
SOBER, today.

 

LIFE LINE

 

LIFELINE

 LIFELINE

My father was sightless from the age of 4-5, and became a mute at age 50.  He was a farmer, who with my mother spent some of their winters visiting us in sunny, warm (Yeah...right--grin!) Naples, FL.

Deaf-Blind Pop just loved, REALLY loved to swim in the Gulf of Mexico.  He could tell by the sun and the breeze which way was the shore--when he swam out to a sandbar.  One time he swam out there, the sun hid itself, and the breeze decided a siesta was a good idea. So he determined which way to swim, and he wrongly chose to swim west, toward Corpus Christi, TX...800 miles across the Gulf.

Someone did swim out there finally...but nobody including himself knew he was "in trouble".  One of my sisters, visiting for a week, bought a 500-foot boat-towing line at a marina, and from that day, Pop was tethered to my mother who sat in a chair on the beach collecting coquina for soup-making.  And so whenever Pop wanted to swim back to shore, he just followed his lifeline.

I make the analogy here of a Peep swimming around in the life of an alcoholic.  There is no way to discover the direction for the shore of sobriety.  It just does never occur to the Alkie, that if he doesn't take that first drink, he will never, NEVER get drunk.  Somehow, an outside force (Higher Power?  God!?) intervenes in any number of human ways/forms. The lifeline of Alcoholics Anonymous is hooked onto his belt at first.  The Steps, which he learns about from a sponsor, become a way of life which he works at following...never perfectly.

Eventually--it happened to me--that lifeline of sobriety in AA became wrapped around his heart, and a love which cannot be expressed in words, grew (slowly in my case).  Only in actions, behaviors, mistakes, amends, a knowledge of self, a willingness to grow along spiritual lines, and helping others to live God's Will, can I show my regard, my respect for, my LOVE of this program which has given me an extra 35 years to live.

Peeps, let us stay sober and help one another today.  Let us please not be spiteful.  But let us in forgiveness, grow in the grace of humility...and SOBRIETY!  Allow me please to lovingly try to understand those who show disagreement with me, and just Let Go and Let God!


Photo in Deviant Art:   life_lines_by_werol.jpg