Steve Cannon
Going Blind
It was back in 1981, after returning from a trip to Managua, Nicaragua, that I realized I was losing my sight. What a frightening experience to be in an airport surrounded by strangers as my eyesight started failing!
The eye specialist diagnosed my loss of sight as due to glaucoma, a disease both degenerative and congenital, and in my case also hereditary. In her old age, my grandmother on my father's side had suffered from this condition, as did my father. From the age of 50 to the time he lay on his deathbed at age 92, he was stone-cold blind. A rather frightening legacy, for I realized I was doomed to the same fate. I was told by several specialists that I am too young (I'm 59) for the majority of surgeries that might or might not help me.
In the Black archetypical universe, our blind artists are almost always musicians—from Blind Lemon Jefferson to Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. But I'm a writer and face a different dilemma. Unlike musicians who rely on good ears to hear and memorize tunes, as a writer I rely on information that is 90 percent dependent on eyesight. So hearing the news that I would eventually lose mine made me both depressed and vulnerable. How would I?
I'’ve had to face this challenge several times over the last few years in both my private and my professional life. One incident that scared the hell out of me was the fire that broke out in my house at about four in the morning, destroying the entire top floor. I was alone, smelled smoke, and managed with my no-seeing self to feel my way out through the roof, down to the backyard. I still have nightmares about what happened that night. At the college where I've taught for 19 years, budget cuts prevented me from getting the kind of assistance I needed to help me prepare for class and grade students' papers. I found myself being further marginalized by society, now not just as a Black man, but as a handicapped Black man.
But in this new world of impending blindness, my biggest adjustment has been figuring out how to continue what has always been my life's work: reading and writing. With more than 98 percent of my eyesight gone, it makes me a better listener and forces me to live more within the world of my own imagination—guarding me from my fears. And just like Blanche DuBois, the aging southern belle in Tennessee Williams's play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” I have come to depend on the kindness of others. I took disability leave from my college, and one of the things I've done during that time—of which I'm quite proud of—is to start a multicultural organization called A Gathering of the Tribes. Tribes publishes a literary magazine twice a year by the same group of friends and artists who have been so helpful to me in my personal life.
These are the people, my "tribe,” who accompany me to mostly familiar places by cab and car service. To be sure, my choices and options are now limited— I’m' almost entirely dependent on others. But the traditional choices of the blind were not an option for me. A dog? Embarrassing. It's difficult enough for me to feel my way through life on a daily basis, let alone be dependent on a dog. A cane? Sunglasses? The next thing you know I'l be looking for my cigar and a little tin cup. Since I've been declared legally blind by the state of New York, I have applied for a talking computer, which I hope will help me out with the task of reading and writing. In the meantime, three or four people a week drop by to help me with such tasks as going through my mail, helping to keep my house clean and organized, going grocery shopping and doing the laundry.
As far as my own writing is concerned, I dictate material to one of my friends, who then reads it out loud for me to edit. In spite of my impending blindness, in many ways I find life more beautiful than ever. Because of the love I give to and receive from others, I am able to keep on keeping on.