Blind people are just....people

Seven years ago… (my memory is a little foggy but i’m sure it went something like this)

“I’ve been to see the specialist,” I said slowly. Nervously. It wasn’t like me to be nervous. “He says he doesn’t know how much sight I’m going to lose, or how quickly.”

I felt like telling him he could leave if he wanted to, and I wouldn’t blame him. Yes, things had been going really well, but we’d only been together a couple of months. A broken girlfriend probably wasn’t what he had in mind.

He nodded thoughtfully. “So… when do you get a guide dog? You love dogs. Or do you get a cane first?” He grinned. “I can’t wait to move things round the house so you can’t find them and trip you up with your cane! It’ll be great; winding you up is going to be so much easier now!”

Even now, seven years later, I can’t think of anything that he could have said that would have been better. In those few sentences, he made me feel like it was just a fun challenge we were going to get through together. He pointed out the perks (like a free dog). But more than that, he told me that I was still the same person to him now as I had been five minutes before I told him.