One Moment There

I don’t speak in sight, I wanted to say.
         Because everyone else did, and, you see, I didn’t understand.  I honestly had no idea what it meant for the sky to be blue, and as for clouds—well.  We had learned about them in earth science, but it’s hard to believe in something you can’t see if you can’t sense it at all. 
         And yet, everyone always talked about how beautiful the weather was in spring.  I didn’t even know what beautiful meant.  People think Braille is so amazing, because blind people can read.  And true, it’s useful.  But do you realize how many descriptions there are? It’s so incredibly frustrating.  “She had locks of hair like a raven’s wing…” Fantastic.  Um, could you clarify something? What does that mean?!
         Anyway, it was spring, and it was worse than usual.  Normally I could live with it; it wasn’t as though I ever had been able to see.  But lately I had gotten close to breaking point.  I was just sick of it; sick of people telling me, “Well, I guess you can’t see it, but if you could you would love it outside!”
         Right.  So helpful.  God.  Rub salt in the wound! Don’t be shy, just go ahead, torment me!
         I don’t feel handicapped unless you make me, I wanted to say.
         Of course, I didn’t say those things.  I just smiled and said, “Yeah, it’s too bad, but I’ve never been able to see, so it just seems natural to me.”
         “Andrea?”
         I started slightly.
         “What?” I called back.
         “What are you doing?”
         “Yes, I can help you hard-boil eggs, but I don’t think you want me trying to dye them.”
         “No, not really,” my mother admitted.
         “That’s okay.  I forgive you.”
         I stood up, hoping no one had moved the furniture recently—that was the biggest danger of being blind and living with an interior decorator—and traced my hand along the sofa and into the kitchen.
         “Here,” said Mom, placing the eggs in my hands. “If you could just—”
         “I do actually know how to boil an egg.  Where’s the water?”
         “Ummm…here…” She put what I assumed was the boiling water on the counter in front of me.  I put the eggs in carefully and leaned my head on my hand, placing my elbow on the counter.
         “What does spring look like?” I asked suddenly. “I mean, what does all this pretty blue sky crap mean?”
         She hesitated, and I knew a trite explanation was coming.  I should never have asked. “Well…all the senses are connected.  So, to me, pretty is like…Clair de Lune sort of music, I suppose.  It’s sort of gentle, and soft.”
         “Ah,” I said, trying not to gag.  My mother had a tendency to be overly sentimental sometimes.  And by the way, I hated Clair de Lune.
         “Spring is…spring is what it smells like.  It’s open, and new, and…” She gave up and sighed.  I could hear the frustration; that was all. “You were a spring baby, sweetie.  Your father died in December, and then in May you were born.  I don’t know how else to describe it.”
         “Oh,” I said, and by that I meant comprehension but not understanding.  That was what it would always mean to her.  In the end it didn’t matter what it looked like.  I had my own sense of it; she had hers.  And to me, it would always mean that everyone else had something I didn’t.
         But.
         But.
         But I could…comprehend now.  I understood that, to everyone else, it meant hope.  And maybe someday I could share that.
         Because I didn’t need sight.  As long as you share one sense, any one sense, you can communicate.  And maybe I would always be bitter about not seeing, but maybe I would remember this as the day I didn’t need to.
         And then again, maybe not.  It didn’t have to be a life-changing moment.  It just had to be one thing that made spring a little more bearable, and…cue waterworks, but hopeful.  Forgetting it in a year, a month, did that matter? Sooner or later everything would be forgotten—which had always been oddly reassuring to me, possibly because I was so very cynical.  People spend too much time holding on.  People try to hold images in their minds; eventually they slip away.
         And call me depressing, but everyone forgets everything eventually.  In this moment, it was like I could see.  The next moment didn’t matter.