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Jaimes' Story
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Jaimes' Story |
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Jaime Fradera Senior Member
since 2000-11-25
Posts 843Where no tyranny is tolerable |
Jaime pulls up a chair to sit beside you and starts running at the mouth ... The trouble with our prevailing value system is, among other things, that our value to the society is measured in terms of criteria that have nothing to do with the quality of our lives--the only thing that really matters. This leads to the perception that those who posses certain attributes or material things,++ or the money with which to procure them, are thought to be more important and worthy of attention than those who do not. (If you doubt this, try making your rent or house payments with love, and see what happens to you!) And the tragedy is that so many of us buy in to this fallacy even when we know better. For many years I bought in to it as well, and it almost killed me, as I was presumed to have nothing and be valueless. In this piece, I will relate the story of how I learned that I am neither deprived nor deficient, that I was not a worthless wretch just because I couldn't drive a car, see a motion picture or ever hear a symphony orchestra again. All of us, as blind people, are taught, from a very early age, that we cannot be useful, that we have nothing, that we should receive and not give as others do, and that we have no business aspiring to have a normal lifeThis drum=beat brain-washing continues right on through adulthood and is the cause of untold suffering. The message was driven, hammered home to me twenty years ago. Probably big, but seven, perhaps like Amy. Probably remote, unsettled, aloof, disturbed quite young, still ''' ''' and volatile, I think.f Up until I graduated from the state boarding school for the blind, blindness had not really been much of an issue; but as I enrolled in junior college in the spring of #1975, I stepped out into the ordinary world for the first time. I was still a teenager, and hence, still preoccupied with looking for girls. Although having a social life at the community college was difficult, I supposed it was because there were no dorms, as would be the case at a university. What really distressed me that semester, though, was being pressured to join a special class and club for the blind. On my first day of school, of being out in the greater world, I found myself with none other than a bunch of people from the school for the blind, from whence I thought I had escapade. This told me, implicitly, at least, that I couldn't make it socially with sighted people, certainly not sighted girls; and so the best I could hope for was to hang round the blind. This theory only seemed confirmed later, when I was made to live in blind apartments, seek comfort at a blind bar, go to yet another social club for the blind set up by the rehab agency--all with the aforementioned cats from that "happy home for incurable," my term for the school for the blind. In fact, there was even a doctor, a certain Dr. Patton, who did therapy on us and saw to our emotional needs since we were, after all, former inmates and not really normal. Had this been the end of it, I could have borne it, for I understood some of my difficulties were imposed by others. But it did not end there. I would yet learn, in forceful ways, just how deprived and unfortunate I really was. A year earlier, we had made the acquaintance of yet another man with pretensions of being a father substitute to us, as Mother was divorced. Because I was the only son, some of these would-be patrons tried to win my favor by taking me out to eat hamburgers when I wasn't away at the school--or even when I was. I was never impressed by any of these people, sensing their interest in me to be superficial if not faked. I just ate as many hamburgers as I wanted, knowing they would have to pay, and ignored them. This new pretender fared no better than the rest, although he was more persistent than most. And, like so many self-appointed benefactors of the handicapped, he got everything all wrong! What I needed, he told me, was a woman, not just any woman, but a prostitute. It should be borne in mind that, in Latin countries, it is a common practice for a father to take his teenage sons to a brothel wherein they might learn the feel of a woman and the mechanics of making love, this being considered a proper right of passage into manhood. I was less than enthusiastic. Although I was curious what it would be like, in fact I was not ready My would-be mentor had no such qualms, however, and one night in my first semester of college, he brought me this I don't know where he got her prostitute. It was awfulll! I was as uncertain as ever about having sex with one but did it anyway; and then, of course, I wished I had not. It felt kind of like an operation, or maybe like wanting to go to the bathroom. this (of course) was at no cost to me since I was, as my patron said, "sightless."" And what of my prostitute,Wwwww? After being told I was deprived, after giving me what she had heard I needed, she must have been perplexed by my indifference and ingratitude. Though sighted, she neede a man to bring her to work and take her home again, and I am sure he gave her something to help her make it through another day; and I doubt thatWwwww felt very good about herself or what she was doing. I had been tricked into tripping over my Catholic and Southern Baptist uu brining, a theologic hodjpodj wich purported to teach me when sex was sacred and when it was profane. To my mind, a prostitute was "dirty;' I had been with a prostitute and therefor I was "dirty" too. Instead of reassuring me that I could make it with girls, this only seemed to tell me what I didn't have and couldn't do. For if I had it so bad that only a hookier would ever want me, (for a fee, of course) then how could anybody else--for free? Now I felt so bad, so degraded and sick inside, consumed with guilt and remorse that I had let myself be used, and, worse, participated in my own violation. That summer, in 1975, I moved into the aforementioned apartments of the blind, trying to go to summer school. And it was here I would be told that I was even more deprived than I Imagined possible. This was a bleak time, my first apartment in San Antonio. I had too much time and not enough to do; and I amused myself by listening to Armed Forces Radio because it did not air commercials. My life was full of monotony and sameness, of empty days, of sleepless nights, and then one day I heard about the dating service. There are few things that sadden and disgust me more, I think, than the way so many dating and mating so-called "services" exploit and suck money out of desperate lonely people in exchange for broken promises of instant love. The one I went to was called Match-maker something, and upon hearing the commercial, I called a cab. On arriving I talked with a certain Jack, who told me how the service worked. For a fee of $250 one could look at pictures of women in their file and make a selection, and conversely, your picture would also be available for women to select. He said that if I paid the $250 fee my picture would be put in the file but that I couldn't see the pictures. I offered that perhaps someone could describe the pictures to me; but this Jack person repeated that they couldn't do that and I had to see the pictures and I couldn't see the pictures. Well, I thought, couldn't I hear their voices or something? But Jack person only retorted that, look, I would have to see the pictures and I couldn't see the pictures because I couldn't see. I decided I couldn't convince him and got a cab for home. Back home I decided I'd been chicken and should have stood up for my rights. I called Jack person back to resume the argument on the phone; I don't remember which one of us hung up. Two hundred fifty dollars! Was this the price for a date; was this the cost of love? That was all the money I had in my San Antonio Savings account; and I was only getting $97 a month from the government. The fact I had even considered such a rip off racket only illustrates how desperate and how naive I really was. But fortunately, I decided paying out two hundred just to sit around and hope to be selected wouldn't be a good investment,; especially since I was blind; so who would want a blind person like me, anyway--except maybe another hooker----for a fee, of course. I did not know then how to live outside an institution, and unknown to me, I was also very ill. When I finally saw a doctor and went into the hospital, it was late; but not too late. And it was in the hospital that my life would take a sudden and dramatic turn, and the dogma that no woman could ever want me because I was blind was about to be disprooven and shattered, forever. The hospital in which I stayed was a teaching facility for students in the nursing program, and it was common for these college-age students to see me on their rounds, sometimes singly, often with trailing instructors. If they tried to draw me out and make me talk I just ignored them, sensing that as amateur clinicians most were only there to get a grade, knowing they would leave me and move on. But I was not prepared for Xxxxx. The trouble with Xxxxx was that she took her nursing charge too literally. She came in one morning, woke me, introduced herself and took my vitals, like all the rest; but then, instead of leaving me to my own devices, she wanted me to have lunch. this seemed odd as I knew I would be fed lunch. Then she said that, well she wanted to have lunch so why not?? I think I sort of growled at her, thinking: Don't they have lunch breaks? But she kept bugging me, pestering me, saying that, well, she wanted me to have lunch with her so why wouldn't I lunch with her? She just wouldn't leave me alone until I said that, well, okay I would have lunch; hoping she would leave me in peace. She finally did leave-- for a while And so it was that, carefully, tenderly and patiently, with the skill of some one born to her profession, with the insight of a woman twice her age, Gentle Xxxxx reached inside me, and drew me out; and did so in a way that no one else had done before. Alone among the nurses Xxxxx truly seemed to care, for she brought the joy and precious Sun my shattered spirit needed most. Every day she came to see me she exhorted me to smile, and smile and smile again, saying I looked so much better when I smiled. And she insisted that I groom and dress for when she came to see me, not stay in hospital pajamas; that I go for walks with her on the grounds--and no one else did that And when I left the hospital, Xxxxx followed. She stood with me for hours, waiting in lines that never moved, waiting to be seen at welfare offices, waiting for prescriptions to be filled, taking all the time it took for me to understand how to use the pharmacy and get what I needed from social service technocrats that did not have the time to care. This was absolutely critical, for I did not know then how to live outside an institution and had virtually no private support system at all. I am convinced that, if she, or someone like her, had not gotten personally involved, I would eventually have gone off the medication, that the illness would have recurred, that my life would probably have ended, that you would not be reading this post. Instead, In the weeks and months that followed, she showed me in ways I would never forget, that it wasn't what I couldn't do that counted, but what I had that mattered most. And of all the golden treasure Xxxxx saw locked up inside me was my own living humanity, that, unlike anyone else she knew who could see, I seemed always to have time for her. I would notice, I would listen, I could understand and care. And it was for all of that and more that she had loved and needed me, that a world of lonely people needed me--and what difference did it make that I had been a patient; what matter did it make that I was blind. (so, how about that, Mister "Jack" sir. If you're still operating, squeezing money out of desperately lonely people, I have a message for you, and it is this: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Perhaps it was YOU who couldn't see the picture!!!) Xxxxx was the last oasis, the final life-giving spring before my great crossing of the desert. For as I went on to university, the rejections and browbeating continued: I was blind. I could do nothing. I could be nothing. I had nothing. I was worth nothing. No one would look at me because I couldn't look back. I should go to a special university for the blind. I was strange and freaky, the amazing blind person that walked alone without a dog. I wish I could tell you my chief tormentors were 17-year-old ignorant university freshman boys and girls, but they were not. The generals who led this charge were the counselors and teachers I was turning to for help. And just what sage advice did they all have for me? That I should be so ashamed of who I was that I should pretend to be what I was not; that I should wear bigger glasses to look more sighted, even more radical procedures to make myself seem "normal"; Though even then, I never could be. I wish I could tell you that I knew better than to believe them, that the hail of epithets (however kindly meant or well- intended) bounced off me, that the barbs, the pins and needles never stuck me--but they didn't bounce. They stuck. they hurt me, and made me bleed inside. Inside is the worst place you ever want to bleed, because there's little you can do, to make it stop. And as the barrage continued, semester after semester, year after year, I withdrew, curling to a little ball inside myself, flinching from the funny world outside. For in my fantasies and solitary skull games, I could hear what no one else had time to tell me. My old girlfriend was there to telephone after a "bad day" again, there reminding me, "please smile, and smile, and smile for me again; because you look so much better, when you smile!" And sometimes there were also others, and they were friends of her's, and mine. And like no one else I knew outside, they seemed always to have time for me; saying there was nothing wrong with me, saying please take care of me, that there was still a world of lonely people who needed all I had to give and so, for my sake and for their's, I left the university, having lost most of my hearing, and went home to San Antonio, to reconstruct my life. I was now a member of Mensa and began attending social functions. It was at one of these, a month after quitting school, that I met Yyyyy. For the first time in eternities, it seemed, I was in the company of adults, not boys and girls. Yyyyy was distraught over her recently failed marriage and we began to talk. Given my own recent battering, perhaps you can imagine my astonishment and delight to realize that Yyyyy who wasn't "disabled," was actually confiding in me; and even more amazingly, that it didn't seem to matter to her that I was blind and could only just barely hear her, patiently repeating and repeating until she finally got it through--and how many people bothered with all that? (today, I understand that this is normal and that my differences with sighted people, despite what I was always taught, are only superficial, but at the time I did not know this). And I was even more astounded when Yyyyy called on the phone to ask me out! There was an art exhibition, and she had talked to the curator to inquire if it would be all right for me to touch the sculptures, and it would be no problem. She picked me up with a friend, so I actually got to go out with TWO women instead of one! And I hadn't had such a good time in such a long, long time. We kind of "broke up" after that; perhaps we were both too absorbed with the wreckage of our lives. But, to me, what she and I had had together could only mean one thing: That I really could be the object of a woman's desire, in the privacy of my own thoughts, that there was nothing wrong with me. Great stuff, all of this was; and I would have to take what comfort I could from it. For as I continued to press for inclusion and acceptance in the greater world, the browbeathing resumed. I was surprised to learn that the crazy doctor, the same one who "did" the blind, was still operating, and that the blind club at the blind bar was still going strong. I was naive enough to think I had a choice not to go to the blind bar and play beeping ball, not to get mixed up with the crazy doctor, to insist there was nothing the matter with me. But there were others who did not agree. It came to my attention one day that the San Antonio Free Clinic was offering a free class for singles, and I thought this would be a great way to get out in the world and meet more people--elpecially women. And since the announcement didn't say that the handicapped were not invited, I was naive enough to think I would be welcome, and I took a cab. It turned out to be one of those touchy-feely-talk-about- yourself pop psycho-babble encounter therapy groups wherein everybody forms a circle, takes turns talking, but never says anything that matters to anybody else. I sat in the center of the circle, explained that I couldn't hear too well, but that by getting near enough to each person as they spoke, I could participate in the discussion. All I remember about the first session is that the group "facilitator" was yelling. Since it was hurting my ears, I asked him not to yell; but he kept yelling. Since he had told me that he was a veteran, I supposed that he was disabled too and might have been deafened by the sound of exploding artillery shells, or something. But at the next session the problem turned out to be my presence in the group--though I don't know that anyone else complained. The session began with the "facilitator" complaining that he had gotten a sore throat trying to yell at me the day before, and yelling at me that I was too distracting and that I couldn't be in the group because I was handicapped and they didn't have time and I should go to this group for blind and maybe hearing impaired he didn't know but he knew about this doctor whatsit and would give me their phone number. When his tirade finally stopped, I toldhis group than he ever would and had chosen one for the general public. He countered that I was deaf and couldn't be in this group. I countered that surely something could be worked out. He countered that they didn't have time and more single women were going to join. I countered that was all the more reason to stay and I wanted to meet more people too. We kept at it, the "facilitator" and I, in this marathon contest of opposing wills and philosophies. I said I didn't want to just sit around the house and wanted to live in the world. He said I should go to the agency for the blind. I said I knew more about the agency than he cared to. I said I had had relationships with women and I had something to offer the group, and furthermore, that he was depriving everyone of the chance to know me and of what I had to offer. On we went, and the others started complaining I was taking too much time and others needed to talk and it was getting late; but we just kept arguing! I appealed to them for support, asking them to try to reason with their "facilitator," but no one wanted to. I told them I wanted to live, to compete, to make my way in the grteater world, only to be told that wasn't realistic and to talk to the blind counselor---or was it the counselor for the blind----he wasn't sure... By now, it was almost #9-00. I tried to tell them what they would miss by excluding me, that they would regret it later, that no one else in the world had what I had, that they would be all the poorer for leaving me out--but alas, all my pleading was to no avail. I finally decided the "facilitator" wasn't about to facilitate my participation; so I called a cab for home. For I realized the futility of participating in a group that didn't want me. I wish I could say it didn't hurt me, to be kicked out like that, but it did hurt, and still made me bleed inside. It hurt me to be told my blindness and deafness were so freaky that no normal people would want me, so horrible I could not even be human. I wanted to believe I knew better--and I did know better; yet it still hurt; still made me bleed, and cry. On the other hand, I'm sure i bore this kind of vitriolic trash better than I ever had before. By now, I could cite a body of evidence to support the contention that I was important, that I was still needed in the world--even if everybody else said I was not. I had also found, in Mensa, a degree of acceptance and support that I had never known before, the more unusual because those who included and understood me were not blind. I was learning how to avoid toxic browbeating people; I was learning how to select the company I kept, the programs I listened to, the friends I made. And it was with the help of a salesman friend of mine that I finally moved to Austin, in the summer of #1983, where I would once again begin to re-invent my life. I moved into one of the co-op houses near U.T. It was called the Ark, and held about 50 or so college-age kids in the summer time. When I was admitted, the question arose as to what sort of labor I could perform for the house. No one seemed to know what I could do, and neither did I, but we tried various things. the behavior of those kids was commendable because, though they knew almost nothing about blindness, I was never treated discourteously. In the end nobody made much of an issue over holding me to the labor requirement; and being the lazy person I am, neither did I, though I still wished I could find a way to be useful. Soon, I would be, however, and in a way I could never have even imagined possible. The trouble started over something trivial and silly--my decision to go back to school. The house had made it policy that you had to be a student to live there, and everybody who cared to know had plenty of advance notice from me of my plans. I was also undergoing a massive psychological transformation I was gaining an appreciation of my personal worth, that I did not have to be hostage to circumstances, that I could carry out my own plans, and control my own life--even though I was now both deaf and blind. and, not surprisingly, there were others who did not agree. When registration opened that fall; I requested a nuisance form, claiming tuition exemption, from my rehab counselor at the Texas agency for the Blind, but she denied it on the basis I did not have a 2.0 grade point average and was not taking 12 semester hours, repeating she had told me many times that she could not approve my plans. (this would later be exposed as a pretext she used to dominate and control the lives of her clients, threatening them with loss of funding of services if they didn't do what they were told; that her actions had nothing to do with agency policy and everything to do with intimidation and browbeating.) There it was again. I could not do what I wanted; I could not live in the world; I couldn't even go to school. It would be hard to imagine how many sighted adults would tolerate such mindless dribble, such arrogance and interference in their personal lives. In an unprecedented act of defiance, I requested a supervisor review without even knowing if it was allowed and without having any idea what I would do when I got there. I was talking back to "god" for the first time; and it was very, very frightening, especially because "god" was blocking my financial aid, as a controlling device, and I was about to be kicked out of the ark for non payment of rent. Next, I tried to reach some one in the Governor's office, then the state library. I was beginning to shake--to shake with both fear and unbridled rage. I was racing against time, for I was losing what was left of my hearing very quickly. Then I RAN over to the school and registered, paying them $200 I didn't hare. Then, on a tip, (and with some reservations) I called the local president of the National Federation of the Blind, the NFB There I was again, back with the blind; but I had never been here before. These were not like the passive, complaining blind people of my past. They had jobs and families; they had schedules, places to go and things to do. Instead of living apart from the greater world, they were right in the middle of it, right where I had always wanted to be. And what was startling was meeting friends from the school for the blind, from the past. Mike Marshall was there,, and Tommy Craig, and others--guys who had been trouble-makers at the school, who wouldn't conform, wouldn't do what they were told, earning the ire of the administration, and who left. They told me that many in the Texas affiliate were despairing of finding a student to contest new unpopular regulations promulgated by the agency for the blind. Now, I was doing it, and I was pledged the full support of the organization, that the Federation would do whatever it might take to help me carry out my plans. This they did, and two years later I was back in school, ending the term on the honor roll. But more than that had been accomplished. Eventually, the regs used to keep me out of college were struck down by the Texas legislature; and appeal and fair hearing procedures were streamlined. I have been told many times that what I did was courageous and historic, but I feel rather uncomfortable writing about that. All I ever wanted was to be free to run my own life. I can only describe the miraculous wonder I felt over what my own persistence had brought me, that for the first time in my life I had openly contested the power of those who would have ruined my life and broken my spirit, and won a victory in which each and every one of us can share. The next several years were hard and turbulent. I was now attending a new church as my social circle widened with new friends. Many interesting people came to live with us at the ark; and they were an important base of support for me. I tried five times to complete another semester before I finally succeeded. But the illness began to rage out of control, giving me unpredictable spells of total deafness lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few months at a time, complicating everything I did. In #1986, as my illness worsened, I went into another rehab program, only to have them conclude, after two months of testing, that I was not low- functioning and was learning disabled because I was blind which made me multiply-handicapped which made me a patient because I needed a social worker. This was by far the most painful browbeating of all; but it was also the last. As #1987 began, I was now in extreme discomfort, and my doctor persuaded me to let him do a surgery to relieve my symptoms and hopefully arrest further damage. I had this done in April, and after a few days in the hospital I went home to recover. It was there, while recuperating at the Ark, that I met Zzzzz. My eyes mist with tears as I am writing this, as I remember her. Zzzzz had moved into the adjoining suite when I came home from the hospital. For a few weeks we would briefly exchange courtesies. She would tease me as she passed me in the hall; and I would sometimes say hi as I passed her room, or knock to see if she was home. She was friendly but reserved, so I guessed she was also a student. On the other hand, I was feeling very sick from the effects of medication and deep surgery. I was even afraid I would never be well again. I had too much time and nothing to do with it, as all my plans to do anything had been thwarted, temporarily, by the illness. As yet another "storm" began of deafness, I don't think I could have felt more lonely, useless and sad, knowing nothing else to do but to keep reading the same Braille magazines over and over. But then one night, in the midst of my dizziness and pain, Zzzzz wanted to talk. I told her what I told everybody, about the illness and that I couldn't hear. When she wouldn't leave I told her it would be easier to go talk to somebody else, but she wouldn't leave. I said it would be easier to talk with me in a few days, maybe weeks, when the deafness cleared, but she still wouldn't leave. My ears hurt. I was getting exasperated with her. I felt bad and wanted to lie down. Didn't she understand I couldn't ''' Then she began spelling into my hands; and I decided to make an effort and see what the trouble was. I got my keyboard and she began typing right away, but the machine was broken, yet she kept insisting this was important. At last I yielded to her, wondering in amazement why she would want to go to so much time and trouble just to talk with me--and not another person who could hear! And just what was so important that we had to talk about it now, not later, right now? It was Zzzzz, herself. She spoke of a world obsessed with trivia, with superficial appearances, full of counterfeit people playing stereotyped roles. People didn't want to talk about important things, things that mattered and counted. She was important. She had something to say, and nobody seemed to really be listening to her. (How astonishing it was to me that, although I was deaf, she still thought I would listen, and understand her!) She spoke of a brief and violent marriage, an abusive husband that threatened to follow her if she tried to flee, and how she fled anyway. On we went. She was a poet, she said and, yes, I could read her one of mine. The piece of twaddle I read her was but an effort, full of mistakes. and how wonderful it was that a sighted person wanted me to read to them! And when I finished, about all Zzzzz said was, "O! ''' O, Jaime, ''' O! '''Oh! ''' And so we continued. We talked of our fathers, our childhoods, our bills, even our diseases, and just about everything else in the entire universe--and the more we explored, the more we had in common. Finally, after several hours of this, we called it quits and went to bed--separately, but right next door! I had fallen helplessly in love with Zzzzz and I always will be. I loved her unbridled passion; I loved her determination; I loved her intellect, her command of English. And most of all, I loved the way she wore down my plastic persona, the way she broke through my stiff reserve, the way she finally reached inside me and drew me out, the way she showed me I had more ability than others who were not "disabled" that she still needed me. At last, it seemed to me, Zzzzz my neighbor, my new friend, was someone I could really talk to, and my fantasies of what she and I would have together began to run away with me. But, alas, she and I would never be. For there was yet another thing we had in common; Zzzzz was disabled, too; and her problem was at least as bad as mine. She seemed too thin to have been eating properly. There was a problem with low blood sugar, she said, and it was apparent that her illness and her life were out of control. She was irresponsible, couldn't pay her rent, and refused to leave. On the day she was to be evicted, the last time I saw her, she was in what could only have been a manic phaise. She was high, said she wanted me to read to her, then wanted me to eat dinner with her, then she just wanted me. Her bizarre mania frightened me and I locked my door. Phil gave her an hour to leave and was about to call the police. My own heart was breaking and breaking. As we discussed whether to call the police, ZZZZZ finally left, probably spending the night on the street, ending up back in the hospital. I would never see her again; and I can only hope she got the help she needed. I would steal a final fleeting chance to say goodbye. KZZZZZ, the one person I thought I could really talk with, the one who would let me read to her, the one who didn't care that I was deaf and blind, was gone; and I was devastated. I despaired of ever finding anyone like her again. What could I do now with all the lump inside my throat, with all the things I meant to tell her? And so it was, having no one left to talk with and nothing else to do, that I began to write. I didn't keep any of it. It was just unreadable twaddle. It was the way I felt, full of sadness and longing, roiling with reignited passion and unfulfilled desire. But When the pain was finally over, when the tears at last were dry, I began to see that, beyond the sadness and the pain, Zzzzz gave something no one else could ever take from me: yet another confirmation someone else could love and need me, that there were also many others, still waiting for all the love I had to give. Whether she intended to or not, Zzzzz had somehow helped unlock me; and one day I, too, would help set others free, returning the favor, completing the circle. From now on, I would emulate the qualities I so admired in her. No longer would I seek the right person. Instead, I would strive to be my own ideal. From now on, my "disabilities would be as nothing to my wonder, to my joy in living, to my desire and willingness to love. This would be the next chapter of my epic journey. While I was undergoing this latest psycho-spiritual transformation, my illness was finally brought under control. The damage to my hearing had stopped, and although I had already lost 90 percent of it, my dizziness and bouts of total deafness began to subside. I was moving from place to place, unable to stay anywhere for long because I didn't have enough money for basic needs. I was still; writing up a storm, though it was mostly to amuse myself since no one else seemed interested, as far as I knew. But then one day the co-op house I lived in put on a coffeehouse at which anyone wishing to do so could read what they wanted. Just for the hell of it, I invited myself to it and read some of my twaddle, relishing the experience of reading to sighted people for the first time in, ''' in ''''''. Then two months later I had to move again, and a month later, yet again! I was living in a new co-op house, and when we had another poets' reading, I was invited to be in it! They had heart about me, they said; so would I read? I was so startled, I was surprised! Especially when someone asked could they have a copy of what I had read! Since everything I had was in Braille, making print copies was very cumbersome, and it involved getting somebody to take down my dictation with a pencil, which was slow and tedious. Then a friend of ours died, and at the "informal" burial service I read some twaddle about life and death, of which fortunately no one wanted a copy. Until then, I wrote using a Braille writer, a machine similar to a typewriter, and because of the difficulty of transcribing my work into print for a mass audience, I didn't keep most of it since, apart from my blind friends who read Braille, I was mostly talking to myself. This, however, was about to change. In 1989 we finally convinced the Texas agency for the Blind that I needed a computer, which incidently, they had claimed was only a "convenience!" It was a little convenience called a VersaBraille. The machine featured an electronically driven (paperless) Braille display and a keyboard. With the addition of a dot-matrix printer, I had a way to compose and print documents for the first time without any sighted help at all. Now, I could write letters, homework assignments, fliers, subversive literature, anything I wanted with what to me seemed incredible ease and independence. I also found to my delight that writing on the electric keyboard was much faster than on a mechanical one, and that the more I wrote the more clearly I could think, and vice versaBut there were more startling developments to come. A year later I decided to buy a modem for my VersaBraille and plunged into the world of cyber land and to me it was a new and truly wondrous world. For the first time I was actually able to read stuff posted on public boards--and read it all with privacy and in clear, sharp electronic Braille! And there were o, so many, so many boards to explore. And these were, indeed, historic times. As silly Seldom raved and ranted from Baghdad, as the largest invasion force in history poured into the Persian Gulf region, I got to read about it all, via the AP press wire, in Braille. This may seem an irrelevant part of the story, but it is an important part. By using this new tool, I was closer to being a part of the greater world than I had ever been before. As I read the wire service copy, I was, in effect, reading a daily newspaper, and my deaf- blindness, so long the excuse for so much ostracism and browbeating, the occasion of so much anguish, isolation and pain, had at last been transcended, indeed, had finally been rendered almost completely irrelevant! Momentous as these developments were, there were, even greater thunderclaps to come. It has been written that, "among times there is a time that turns a corner, and everything this side of it is new." For me, that time came, that corner was turned on January #8, #1992, as I stepped off the plane on to Stappeton Field in Denver. I had decided to leave behind everything and all the world I knew, to pull up stakes and move west; and that move, that decision, would profoundly change my life forever. I had come in search of greater opportunity, a brighter future, a better life. In the end, I would find all of that and more; but as I walked out the jetway, flinching against the bitter cold, I did not know how I would fare, or what might befall me in this new, and cold and alien place. I only knew what I had done could not be undecided, that I could not renege on the commitment I had made, that I had no choice but not to quit and meet them to the end. Later, I would find more things, new friends to help sustain me; but for now, shivering against the cold, knowing that my life would be turned upside down, facing an uncertain and unsettling future, I would have to do the best I could with all I had brought with me--my Faith, and hope, and dreams. So began the greatest adventure I had yet undertaken. For it was here, at the Colorado Center for the Blind, that I would take a giant step toward inclusion in the greater world, and this was one of the very few rehabilitation programs in which we, as blind students, were required to live out in the world, to take on the realities of daily life as an integral part of training. In the past I had been browbeaten, treated as a child or a patient; here, for the first time, I was assumed to be an adult and adult wishing to learn all the skills I would need in order to reach my aspiration, to live in the world. For in spite of all the "training" I received in Texas, I knew I still did not have what it took to live in the world. I was afraid to cook and didn't know how to tell when a steak was "brown" or chicken "done." I didn't travel alone anymore and only used paratransit services because that's what they had taught me to do in Texas. I knew next to nothing about word processors. I didn't know about checking accounts. I moved slowly, thought slowly, and had yet to rid myself completely of the image of the helpless, clumsy blind man, and I knew I would have to do that if I was to have any chance or claim to living a normal life. I was now also deaf, and would need to learn to use tools and techniques allowing me to earn a living, travel anywhere, converse with anyone, and otherwise make my way and go about my business in the world. Instead of being a major disability, my deaf-blindness would have to be reduced to the level of a minor nuisance, an incidental characteristic that would determine how I do things, but not whether I can do them--not by denying deaf-blindness, but by accepting it, then learning compensatory skills and an affirmative philosophy The next 13 months of my life were a whirlwind of activity, a blur of strong emotions. Although some of it was fun, much of it was not, so grueling, so furious was the pace. It was too fast, too much, too exhausting, too cold. the sudden change in climate and activity made me ill, at first, and I couldn't join in much of the skiing and rock climbing, doing as much of it as I could though I was in a lot of pain. I was being pushed, tested; my character was being measured. Was I one to be counted on to keep commitments, finish out what I had begun? Would I be willing, on a moment's notice, to demonstrate that I believed the things I said I did? Would I give this program everything I had, and more? In retrospect, I can only say I did the best I could. But during training, in the heat of the arena, I kind of lost awareness of time passing, and knew only that I woke one day to find that I was graduating, unbelieving I had just prepared, from scratch, a five- course meal for forty people (despite the minor kitchen fire I started, then put out.) This is not to brag about myself, for every graduating student does the same, although it was without precedent for me. But even long before I graduated, the payoff had begun. Because I knew Braille, I was often asked to work with students who did not. As I gained travel skill, I did the same and was once assigned to lead a group to a restaurant I had never been to myself. As I grew in philosophy, I could share my insights and personal experiences with junior students who were not as far along on their journey. Then I began to hear from people who wanted me to do miracles for them, who thought that I could fix the world-- and these people, who wanted me to help them, were not blind! [This message has been edited by Jaime Fradera (edited 11-29-2000).] |
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Paula Finn Member Ascendant
since 2000-06-17
Posts 5546missouri |
Jaime...an amazing story about an amazing man...one I am proud to call my friend |
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Erin Member Elite
since 2000-06-15
Posts 2527~Chicago~ |
Jamie~ Thank you very much for sharing this piece with us. I am glad that I got to read it. And this was an amazing piece just as Janet said. People leave our lives as quickly as they come, but the ones that mean something leave footprints in our hearts. |
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SEA 
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 2000-01-18
Posts 22676with you |
Jaime~ It's wonderful to meet you.....thank you for sharing your story with us.....I'm thankful to have read it today.  -SEA< !signature-->Live,Love,Laugh ~SueB[This message has been edited by SEA (edited 11-27-2000).] |
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Romy Senior Member
since 2000-05-28
Posts 1170Plantation, Florida |
Jaime, Thank you for sharing your story, you are an amazing person! You inspire me to try harder to reach my goals! You have so much strength and character! |
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kaile
since 2000-02-06
Posts 5146singapore |
Jaimes, you certainly have a lot to be proud of and im humbled by all the troubles you have overcome to become the person you are today....thanx for sharing  |
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Broken_Winged_Angel Senior Member
since 2000-04-06
Posts 994Small Town, Somewhere |
Jaime, thankyou for sharing this...what a well written story with a happy ending thus far. I'm inspired.  With a little piece of tomorrow, You'll have to kiss yesterday goodbye. Because today won't last forever, And the past will only make you cry. |
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
Jaime I just read your poem today in open and came to look at what else you had written. I was captured by this story of your life and the character that your strength of spirit through hardship has built. Thank you for sharing this here. |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
Good morning, Jaime, also known as starlight, moonbeam, southern cross. Midnitesun is sending you another package next week: two copies of Reflections, an audio tape, and three small rocks from Chilkat River, Alaska. Enjoy! |
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ESP Member Elite
since 2000-01-25
Posts 2556Floating gently on a cloud.... |
Amazing. I am truly humbled by your achievements. I wish I could have the honour of knowing you. I wish you all the best as you keep pursuing your dreams in life. Thank you for sharing this amazing story. Liz xx "Time has told me not to ask for more, one day our ocean will find its shore" ~Nick Drake |
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JL Member Ascendant
since 2004-04-01
Posts 6128Texas, USA |
Very interesting, enjoyed the read. JL She said: ”You look cute in the dark.” |
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a123 Member
since 2004-03-27
Posts 72 |
You know when i saw this i thought it was too long but once i started reading it i was just pulled into you story. You are an amazing person...thank you so much for sharing your story.. love a123 |
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