Not Guiding, Just Walking Together
As someone who has grown up with a disability and who spends a lot of time discussing both the positive and challenging aspects of living as someone blind from birth to my friends, I often dream of what it would be like to have a friend who just gets it. “But why,” you may ask. “Don’t you have sighted friends who treat you normally?” Well, the answer is a complicated one. Yes and no.
Many of us enjoy amazing friendships with people who are sighted. And yet, at least for me, at the bottom of many of these friendships is a constant question, “What if they aren’t comfortable”?
What does this mean, exactly? Like all people, those of us who are blind or partially sighted long for friendships with people we can be open and honest with, where we can share all the unique things that make up who we are as individuals. Yet in many relationships (though not all), blindness has an unequal focus in one of two ways. Often blindness will have a central focus in the friendship, leading to activities being decided based on whether the person who is blind will be uncomfortable being there, lack of discussion about anything visual, and the sighted friend constantly watching out for obstacles and offering help.
While all these things sound appealing on paper, so much focus will lead quickly to exhaustion for both people. The one who is sighted may very well grow tired of constant feelings like they’re walking on eggshells, and the person who is blind will inevitably grow tired of being treated like something fragile that is about to break if not watched carefully. Still others will fall into the opposite extreme, where blindness is avoided at all costs. These are the friendships where blindness will never be discussed, or if brought up by the person who is blind will be met with polite smiles and nodding, but little more. This may be especially prevalent in friendships involving cultures where disability is considered a societal taboo, and not something for casual discussion. Friends may have questions, but feel they cannot ask because it’s impolite, so will avoid the subject altogether and will treat the person who is blind normally in every other aspect. Of course, most friendships do not fall into either extreme but are somewhere in between.
But is there a third option, one where friends we meet will simply understand and get it completely from day one?I walked into church on a Sunday morning. I had nothing on my mind except the translation I was going to be helping out with. Hurrying up the steps to the entrance, I paid no mind to anything else except getting into church and finding a seat before the service got underway.
“Good morning,” I said, with a bow to the people standing just inside the door, customary for Japanese culture.
“Good morning,” said a voice behind me.
I turned, and to my surprise, there was someone walking in the door right behind me I hadn’t noticed. I wished the stranger a good morning and apologized for not noticing that she came into church seconds after I did.
“I followed you here actually,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how to get here, but you seemed like you were headed in the general direction of the church. Thanks for showing me the way, it’s nice to meet you!”I thanked her politely and went on with my day. After church, we left together, as it turned out we were heading in the same direction. I decided to take a chance and jokingly mentioned that she was brave for following a blind guy for directions, not something people are likely to do. I then found out it had never occurred to her that she was following someone blind, even though she noticed the cane I was very clearly using. She simply wanted to get to church on time and followed the first person she saw heading that way. The rest of the conversation was light and friendly, and she has now become a trusted friend and confidant - someone who is always willing to not only hear about blindness related thoughts but discuss them with sincere interest and consideration for what I have to say without letting the blindness be more than simply another part of the friendship. At church events, when complimented on her apparent ability to guide, she remarks that we’re just walking and talking together and that she isn’t doing anything special or out of the ordinary. And perhaps most memorable of all, the time I again jokingly remarked that she should endlessly offer to carry things for me because that’s the rule when dealing with someone who is blind, and was told that if I wanted the help, just like everyone else, I’d have to ask because if I don’t look like I need help, then I probably don’t.
The moral of the story? Yes, those friends do exist. There are friends who will not let you get away with things merely because you’re blind, who will start walking and expect you to simply follow them, and who will take a picture with you and then try and show it to you because that’s what they do with everyone else. I can’t speak for everyone who is blind, because everyone will have different opinions, comfort zones, and expectations. For myself, however, the people who are truly comfortable with my disability will be the ones who are equally comfortable with slipping up and creating hilarious but wonderful moments that show the extent of my friendship with them isn’t governed around how they treat or view my disability.
And yet, when it does come time to deal with the disability, there is space to talk about it and feel not only heard, but having it be a topic as natural to discuss as any other. So, to sighted readers who know someone who is blind, whether they are friends, family, students or any other relational status to you, I’d invite you to reflect on your own level of comfort with their disability and what you can do to build that level of comfort. If you are a reader who is blind who is feeling discouraged because every friend around you seems to focus too much on your blindness or tries to avoid it all together, be encouraged. There are people out there who will have that balanced perspective so hard to find, and I’d invite you to keep looking for those people, and at the same time, figure out what we as people who are blind can do to help those around us to achieve that level of comfort, because any relationship is a two way street. And for those friends in our lives who get it, thank you for having an open heart, and for being willing to have the tough conversations, asking the questions and having a humble and willing spirit that will, hopefully, lead to a more diverse and inclusive world where we can all be truly comfortable with seeing things differently.
By Clement