Out of the Devils Cauldron by John Ramirez

Author:John Ramirez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

Stolen Sight

Because I didn’t return to the religion fully, a deeper punishment came—a curse that harkened back to my childhood initiation into Santeria. “Your son is on the verge of losing his sight . . .” I remembered Cookie telling my mother when I was just ten years old. Now the old curse had come to claim me because of my disobedience to the spirits. Out of the clear blue the retinas of both eyes began to detach. To correct this, I had one operation after the other—a total of seven—but to no avail. I was completely blind. It is one thing to be born blind but quite another to lose your sight after seeing the sky, the birds, the faces of family, friends, and even those you hate.

What had life done to me now? After thirty years of seeing everything I wanted to see, now I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face. Was God punishing me? Or testing me? Why would I be able to see for thirty years and suddenly not see at all? Each blind person’s experience is unique. For me, it was like a grayish mist came down over my vision, or like a cloudy day sitting on top of my eyes. What an experience. I learned to depend on my hearing and touching through my hands.

The funniest things, the small things that didn’t matter, or the things you never took notice of, you suddenly crave when you’re blind, and those thoughts constantly run through your mind. Life is gray and not by choice. It’s like a whole different dimension where your world closes in. It’s like living in your world with no visitors. What was important at one time doesn’t matter anymore. Emptiness and sorrow become your friends.

The doctors told me I had two choices: a seeing-eye dog or a cane to maneuver myself around with.

That’s when my mother decided it was time for me to move back closer to her. By now I lived on the twelfth floor in her building and she lived on the second. But with the new arrangement, I stayed in her apartment. She knew about the crazy religion I had been involved in, but she wasn’t afraid of my demons. I was her son, and she was going to take good care of me.

My world came to a stop. Losing it all, losing my vision, I lay in one of the back rooms of her apartment, with a treatment of eye drops every four hours. From somewhere in the apartment I could hear a clock ticking, counting off the seconds of my new life—seconds that seemed to stretch into an eternity of nothingness. Doctor’s orders required that I lie twelve hours in bed on my back and twelve hours on my stomach after squeezing the prescription drops into my eyes: twelve hours face-up and twelve hours face-down. The only time I was allowed to get up was to go to the bathroom, shower, or eat.

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