The face in the mirror is not his own. It is handsomer; his eyes carry a story, his eyebrows more defined, his complexion a natural, soft dusk. He, unable to look through the mirror to see himself, pouts, but I, looking at his reflection, am content.
During the first few months after I lost my vision, Emma broke down several times a week. I wasn’t really good at comforting people, so I tried to avoid her. Mom and Dad did too, though often I would hear the quiet sobs fade away whenever I appeared.
I bugged Liam every day, asking how “being blind” felt like. 9-year-old me wanted to make my 10-year-old brother feel that he really mattered to me, so this was my way of being sympathetic. Now I know I’m wrong.
“It’s like staring into the depths of the night. An endless hole that you could fall into, and never come out of. Sometimes, there are little sparks of light like when you rub your eyes too hard, but it’s not real light.” I would explain to my sister patiently for how many times she asked me.
I would often question how Liam got over the fact that he was, in fact, blind. If I were blind, I would, undoubtedly, live a pessimistic rest of my life and lose all of my aspirations I have had before. For me, a small physical flaw would leave a lasting scar in my heart.
If you asked me how I went blind, I wouldn’t even know where to start. The accident happened in a “blink of an eye,” without any notice or sign. And no, I wouldn’t even call it an accident, since an accident usually describes an unfortunate incident that leads to some sort of damage — there was no start or stop to how I became blind. As if, someone sent mysterious powers to defeat me. This is why sometimes when I think about it until now, makes me queasy. Just queasy though — I have gotten over the stage of feeling “unfair.” Yet, similar to an accident, it was unintentional, unexpected, and the cause of an irrevocable impairment. It took us all too much time to accept reality because we had no time to prepare ourselves for what was awaiting. Strategically, no. Emotionally, definitely not either.
It was another day that Liam was going to carry his brightest smile to school. However, he woke up realizing that his eyes would not function properly. He shouted for Mom and Dad to come. I lived beside him, so hearing him shout, which he never did, struck me in surprise. I hurried over as well.
“Mom, Dad, I’m not even joking. When I try to stare at something, it dissolves right after.” I explained frantically, with tears trickling down my face. But I am horrified, because I never cry. The air around me struck me with tension, like a hand pulling me away from this world. Is this my house? Is this Mom, Dad, and Emma? Is this me, Liam? My mind suddenly becomes severely muddled. Mom and Dad didn’t believe me, and it was Emma who realized that this was an emergency, that I needed to be taken to the hospital.
On the ambulance, with the aggravation of the blasting siren and traffic on the road making way, Mom and Dad were not their usual rational selves anymore. Even though I could no longer see their faces, I knew this by how each held onto one hand, trembling. We panicked, panicked, and panicked. Because we didn’t know what else we would be doing, except for panicking.
As we waited for the diagnosis report to come out, I could not stop pacing to and fro the corridor; my hands covered in cold sweat and my feet already numb. When the doctors came out perplexed, I clenched my teeth to express my resentment. They deemed that there was nothing wrong with Liam’s body and his past medical history. And it was true. Not only he was an enthusiastic learner, he was also a three-season athlete. He was exceeding in life. Yet something, sometime, somewhere, somehow deprived Liam of everything he possessed.
After a few hours lying down on the bed while the doctors examined more, I reported to the doctors that my mere dissolving vision now dispersed into nothingness. It was then, when the doctors confirmed that my peripheral vision disappeared. I was later transferred to neurology to finish my diagnosis test. It took several more hours, and by then it was already dark outside, but I knew that Mom, Dad and Emma would not leave until the report came out.
It was, as the doors of the ICU opened, followed by the sorrowful faces of the doctors – it was that moment which made that day the worst of our life. The doctors informed us that Liam was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition called NMOSD, or neuromyelitis optical spectrum disorder. They explained that it happens when the immune system reacts abnormally, then starts attacking the body’s tissues and organs, and results in vision loss or muscle weakness. There was no treatment to it, so it wasn’t clear when Liam was going to get his vision back. But why, I pondered, why did something, sometime, somewhere, somehow deprive my brother of the ability to see, instead of getting weak muscles?
From that moment, I stopped hoping for a miracle to happen.
On our way back home, I didn’t have the nerves to talk to Liam yet. Mom and Dad were silent as well. All of a sudden, from the monstrous laughing and blabbering that occurred on our every car ride, today seemed strikingly dull. That stressed me. I pulled out my sketchpad and started sketching a picture of an eye. It would be by my side at all times, for it was the only thing that could pull my attention elsewhere, and what I always did to distract myself, That eye, as I now recall, would mean that I would be there, guiding him, step by step, until he was able to grab hold of this world independently.
There were so many questions that I desperately needed an answer to. How would Liam continue at school, blind? How would he practice soccer, hockey, and lacrosse, blind? How would he make friends, blind? It was, almost as if, everything would end better if I traded places with my brother. If I were the one blind, everyone would be happier. I valued him over myself. And I knew that my parents did too.
Like a dream, Liam drifted away; like a dream, the new Liam seemed unreal; like a dream, the old Liam vanished without saying goodbye.
From that day on, we waited for a miracle to happen.
Dad and Mom agreed to let me stay home for a while until I had thoroughly adjusted to my new identity. At first, I struggled with everything. I bumped into table corners, tripped on the staircase, and fumbled for everything. Even with the assistance of a walking stick, Mom, Dad, or Emma had to supervise me. That meant someone always had to be by my side from the moment I rose out of bed to the moment I crawled in bed. However, I didn’t like to be treated as the handicapped, so I began exploring my capabilities.
Gradually, Liam was able to navigate the world through his own ways — he figured out how to cross streets by listening to the flow of traffic, write in a horizontal line with the help of a ruler, and maneuver the microwave buttons in order to heat frozen pizza. Sometimes when I felt like he needed a hand, I came over to ask, but he rejected every offering of mine. Even though Liam changed drastically, his tenacious disposition was ingrained inside him.
When Mom and Dad thought I was finally ready to start going to school again, I felt a surge of anxiety. Ever since I lost my vision, I’ve become vulnerable to the outside world. I am less positive in the way I view the world and I tend to put myself in a passive position. I let my subjective side of me overthrow my rationality. I cry when nobody’s looking at me and shed away my emotions when I’m around people.
Liam rarely asked me to have a talk, because he would usually solve his problems by himself. But the night before he resumed school, I knew that this conversation was going to happen. What would it be like tomorrow? The following semester? The rest of my life? The questions that I raised before were now posed back at me. I wanted to comfort him, but since they were the same questions I was searching for answers to, I became helpless. I knew deep in my heart that Mom and Dad could not imagine the torment Liam had to endure at school. Despite that, they still insisted on sending him there, for it was a test to see if he could really survive in society, if he could create a world of his own.
After talking with my sister, I was embarrassed because I never take the initiative to talk to her. But it made me feel much better, although we still didn’t know what lied ahead of us. I lied down, craving for a good night’s sleep, but the endless turmoil going on in my head drove me into utter frustration. I tried to empty the mess of concerns erupting in my head, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t.
Dad drove us to school strangely quiet, and the one thing he left with us was this. “The least you want is to get in trouble because you took in other’s reactions and tried to counterattack. Especially you, Emma. Remember, the more others are ridiculing, the more you stay calm. When they see you’re not at all offended, they’ll likely discover there’s no fun gained poking fun at Liam and stop.” And that was it. We listened, so was our lesson learned.
After we finally accepted the fact that that he became blind overnight, after we stopped grieving, after we could properly study and my parents could properly work, I would sporadically flashback to snapshots of Liam’s “B.C.E.” life. Those moments became suddenly distinct, though if he wasn’t blind and you had asked me to recall any of them, I would not have been able to. With memories floating in my mind came sudden bursts of crying. But life cannot rewind or go backward, so we move on. And maybe because I cried too much, now I have full control of my tears.
When I turned 15, my parents decided to get me Oscar, a guide dog. We got along quickly and soon became best friends. Under Oscar’s guidance, I slowly lifted my head up and was less ashamed of being the only person blind in school. I was no longer the brother who needed help from his younger sister, which alleviated the burden I had to carry around with people mocking and jeering at school. Still, I would rather stay trivial and humble. My sister always says that I went through a downright change after the incident, though I think I am slowly recovering.
Things didn’t go as planned after my brother graduated high school. After reclaiming his eminence, he headed off to Yale, but I didn’t get in. We had planned it out perfectly — to go to the same school for another three years. But now, we were heading off to different directions, which meant that I could no longer take care of him, or simply, be by his side when things got out of his hand. However, like a miracle, he managed to get through these four years by himself just fine. Maybe, when I now look in retrospect and suspect, it was because we both knew we were not far from each other and that if someday he needed me, his pillar would be there. But when I was not, he would be, again, just fine. I could sense that he returned to the old Liam, or maybe, he never did change.
After I graduated from university, I was lucky enough to receive an offer as a speech-language pathologist from a firm I really liked. Not only did that settle my longing concern of finding a job, I was happy for myself that I found one that he could make full use of my abilities, to utilize my “flaw” as a strength, and most of all, something I was genuinely passionate about. I am more than grateful for the opportunities that came to me because without those, I can’t imagine how many hindrances I would’ve stumbled upon.
I have played, am playing, and will play multiple roles. In Liam’s childhood years, I acted like his older sister even though I was three years younger than him. Now that he is all grown up, I seldom stand up for him anymore, but I am his counselor whenever he needs to talk. In the future, I will always be his second emergency contact, because his first is Olivia.
I decided to share wonderful news on a family reunion night — that I met Olivia at my firm, who will be the bride today.
Today, in honor of his big day, I finally reveal to him his present I have been creating over the last several months. It is a painting using mandala dots that make up a vibrant eye. For he is not able to visually perceive it, I created texture differences by layering acrylic paint so that he can use his shrewd tactile abilities to create an image in his head. He touches each dot, carefully, as I carefully describe each feature his fingertips are located at.
“What are these?” I ask. “The eyebrows. Can you make out the lustrous texture?” Emma responds. “Oh, you’re right. Emma, this is amazing. I love it.”
“Down below, small dashes. Hmmm…eyelashes?” “Yep, you’re getting better!”
“Oh, and these are the pupils.” I assert, using my two index fingers to trace the outline of the pupils in a circular motion. “Yes!” Emma cries excitedly.
Liam’s life after he went blind changed from an open-ended question, to a questioning statement that needed confirmation, and eventually to an assertive statement.
Right at that moment, I feel a sudden rush of adrenaline inside me. That’s when I know I have finally grasped my own way of viewing the world. And I can confidently say, that the nuances I can distinguish using my other four senses do not lose to the one they catch with their eyes. I am truly exceeding in life.
“You are beautiful,” Liam says, giving me a tight squeeze, as if he could catch a glimpse of me in the mirror, even though today is the day I am supposed to tell him that he looks better than ever.
Author 作者
Name: Cynthia Zhang
Grade: 10
School: Northfield Mount Hermon
姓名：张澜馨
年级：10
学校：北野山高中
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