In my dreams
I have been blind for almost seven years now. An IED explosion took my sight and all of a sudden my world became a long dark tunnel without any way to escape. Right after the explosion I was taken to hospital and in the time that followed I went through different phases. The first one was panic. The fear to live in eternal darkness from now on, the fear to be unable to cope with the loss of sight made me panic. The second phase was grief, grief about everything I had lost. I would never see a sunset again, I would never see the blooming flowers in spring again, I would never see again the faces of the people I loved and I would never see my face again in the mirror. The third phase was anger, anger directed at the person who did that to me, anger about a terrorist that had pretended to be my buddy... my friend. The fourth phase was acceptance, acceptance of a situation I could not change, acceptance of a new condition that forced me to give my life a new direction. The fifth and last phase was adaptation. I have adapted to a life without sight. I have learned Braille, I have learned to walk with a cane, I have learned to manage my life at home and I have finally made my way back into the job that I used to have before.
But sometimes in my dreams I feel that I can still see. I see the face of my mother, the flowers in our garden in Glencoe Illinois and I see myself sitting behind the steering wheel of my Corvette, the car that I bought right before I went to Iraq in 2007. I enjoy the colours that I can see in my dreams. But then the sound of my alarm clock takes me back to reality, a reality where colours, shapes, faces and distances are nothing but vague ideas, a reality where I depend on my white cane to get around safely. Although waking up to the black nothingness before my eyes is always a difficult thing, I have managed to accept what I am, how I am and I have created a life for myself that is interesting and fulfilling. I feel that I am valued and needed for the skills that I posess and that makes me happy despite my lack of sight.
In my dreams I am still sighted and those dreams compensate for the darkness that surrounds me every day.