Seeing 10/10

S

pringtime in New York City - my first apartment, a good-paying job and a great-looking girlfriend. It couldn’t get much better than that. I had my life figured out. In fact, I felt so good, so magnanimous, that I decided to share my happiness with others. Helping someone less fortunate seemed the noble thing to do. Following a friend’s example, I volunteered with the Lighthouse for the Blind.

The friendly volunteers explained they needed help with an outreach program for the elderly - recently blinded shut-ins. Telling myself I’d bring a little joy to some poor, unfortunate senior citizen, I agreed.

The night before my first meeting with the shut-in, my girlfriend and I had a major fight. She stormed out; I sulked. The next morning, I struggled to open my eyes. I had spent most of the night reliving the fight. I was cranky. I dragged myself out of bed to do my volunteer work, but my generous mood had evaporated. I didn’t want to visit any old blind man.

Charlie lived in a rough section of Manhattan: the lowest section of the Lower East Side. Dodging delirious winos, occasionally crossing the street to avoid desperate-looking drug addicts, I trudged toward our first meeting. I tried to imagine what Charlie looked like. The coordinator said he was very old. At twenty-three, as far as I was concerned, anyone over sixty-five was at death’s door. He was definitely over sixty-five, I’d been told. Probably senile, too, I thought to myself.

Well, I’d wasted this Saturday morning, I thought, but I can call the Lighthouse early Monday morning and take myself off the list of volunteers. I climbed the crumbling steps to Charlie’s run-down building and began the ascent to his sixth-floor apartment. No elevator.

Shuffling sounds signaled Charlie’s approach; a face appeared from behind the graffiti-covered apartment door. I gasped. Cataract-clouded eyes, wispy white hair. He was ancient. Charlie wasn’t just sixty-five; he was sixty-five years older than I was. He was eighty-eight.

He ushered me into his surprisingly tidy apartment. I couldn’t help admitting it looked neater than mine, and I wasn’t blind. Sitting on a slightly musty sofa, Charlie told me how he’d lost his vision and wife of more than fifty years, all in the previous ten months. He told me the past without a trace of self-pity.

I tried to imagine the tragedy of his life, thinking that I’d be suicidal if I were blind and alone. Charlie interrupted my thoughts. He was telling me how fortunate he’d been to have such a wonderful marriage for so long. He smiled at me gently, as if sensing my discomfort.

That first day, Charlie and I visited his barber and walked - more than he had walked since his wife’s funeral. As we walked, Charlie talked. All of his friends and relatives were gone, with the exception of a son in California. He told me tales of his younger days at sea, his service in World War I and his wonderful wife. Time slipped by. My agreed-upon one-hour visit stretched to three hours. Charlie was a great storyteller, but he was more than that. No matter what life event he shared, he never complained. Never. He was always able to find something positive to say about what had happened to him.

Eventually, Charlie needed a nap, and I left him. As I left, I thought that Charlie’s eyes may have been fogged over, but his perspective was 10/10. Just spending a day with him corrected my distorted view of life. I saw all my problems plainly, and my self-pity vanished as I headed home.

Visits with Charlie became the high point of my week; his stories always put things in perspective for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to struggle to wake up on a Saturday morning. Life’s full of surprises, Charlie often said on our visits. It was true, I knew; no event was as surprising as my reluctant visit that Saturday morning many years ago, when an aging blind man opened my eyes.

- Bill Asenjo