March 30 - Telling Time

Last week wasn’t an especially good one for me. Firstly, I was sick and secondly, the battery in my talking watch died. I suppose that the combination of both of these things plus the fact that we were away from home, all served to make my week quite miserable. The part about being away from home was significant in that I wasn’t able to go to my regular watch repair person to have a new battery fitted. I hadn’t realized just how much knowing the time meant to me. Being unwell, I slept a lot. When I woke up, I had no idea of the time and whether or not I was due to take my next lot of medication. I’m sure that Lyle became tired of my constant query as to the time of day or night.

The week did bring to mind stories told to me about the first experiences of some people who had newly lost their sight. When you can’t tell day from night, does it really matter what time it is?

I especially remember Gerry. Gerry lived alone and his loss of sight was quite dramatic – overnight in fact. When he went to bed one night he could see – poorly for sure, but he could see. When he woke up the next morning, he saw nothing. As well as the initial depression, Gerry told me that for the first while of his vision loss, he had a hard time thinking about the difference between day and night. He would wake up from sleeping and not knowing what time it was, he might decide to go for a walk.  The telling of time was simply that if there weren’t people on the street where he walked, he presumed that it was night time. These days, Gerry uses a braille watch to keep track of the time. He is also a working person and his days are regulated by the schedule of a working week.

After my bout of illness, I am feeling much better. Lyle and I are home again and Todd, my reliable watch repair person, has fitted my watch with its new battery. We also have a chiming clock in our house and I have a talking clock on my night table. These small miracles of sound are invaluable for someone who can’t see the face of a watch or the numbers on a clock.

This is also Easter weekend, so spring greetings to everyone. Even though there is still snow on the ground, surely spring is just around the corner!

March 19 - Grandchildren

Lyle and I love our grandchildren! They are such a blessing in our lives. As well as being very special little people and are so close to our hearts, they have given us the opportunity to be with other children of more or less the same age and to participate in programs and activities that have been designed especially for children. We have been so fortunate.

This past weekend Lyle and I were in Winnipeg where our grandson lives. He is not quite two and is a going concern. He runs and climbs everywhere and keeps his parents watchful as to what he might try to do next. He is tall and great at opening doors. He is also very cute and cuddly. I love it when he consents to stop moving around and will sit on my lap.

While we were in Winnipeg, we all went to the Manitoba Children’s Museum at the Forks. I hadn’t known of its existence until then. What a great place for children. It’s located in the old railway maintenance shed and has multiple hands on activities for kids. Most of these are on the main floor level although the train engine and carriage are reached by either steps or a ramp. If you watch Big Bang Theory, you know that Sheldon would really like this place. I liked it because the floor was flat and even and I didn’t have to worry about coming across unexpected steps.

Possibly Benji’s favourite station was a tractor with moveable handles that operated a lift and bucket. These latter were encased in a glass cage. The picture below is of Benji sitting on the tractor seat with Lyle. I am hovering in the background.

We had a great weekend in Winnipeg and of course, our grandson made the day for us. If you don’t have children or grandchildren of your own, perhaps you could look into borrowing someone else’s for a day or two. If you live in Winnipeg, the Manitoba Children’s Museum is a great place to take them.

Sue, Lyle, and Benji

March 14 - Louis Braille

I have just finished listening to a biography of Louis Braille. What an amazing young man! It is astounding to think that in his short lifetime he was able to leave the world with a legacy of such far reaching effects. Braille was the inventor of the six dots system, a system that enables people without sight to read by touch. Although I can’t read braille myself – I think that my fingertips have been desensitized by pounding computer keys – I have been with other people who have read braille with almost lightning speed. The system which Braille invented has been literally unchanged or improved upon since his invention of over two hundred years ago.

Since I finished reading about Louis Braille, I have been especially aware both of the challenges faced by people who are completely without sight and also of some of their accomplishments. Have you been watching the paralympics? While the prowess of these athletes with disabilities is quite amazing, I have also been thinking of the many challenges they have encountered before they reached the height of paralympic endeavour. While we see only the excellence of their athletic ability, I realize that they also face the daily challenges of living with a disability. It is not only their athleticism which has taken them to the level of the 2018 Games, but also patience, determination  and will power.

I was especially impressed by a particular line in the biography I read. In the book, Triumph Over Darkness, the author noted that the only road travelled by Braille in his entire lifetime was the road between the village where he was born and the forty miles to Paris, where at age ten he was enrolled in the Institute for Blind Juveniles.  My thought was that Braille didn’t need to travel far from home in order to leave his legacy. Is this a lesson for us as well? We can all of us make a difference as we inhabit the small part of the world in which we live.

As a side note ...Lyle and I have just flown back from Winnipeg. The aircraft was a CRJ 900. On the overhead luggage compartments, the seat numbers were in visual print, but also in braille. It was the first time we have seen braille on airplane seat numbers.

Thanks to Air Canada and also to the young blind inventor, Louis Braille.

March 3 - Waikiki

Now that Lyle and I are home in Alberta, I would be remiss if I didn’t say something good about our time in Hawaii. We both feel so fortunate that we are able to travel as we do and to enjoy so many different cultures and experiences. It had been twenty years since our last visit to Waikiki, and we noticed quite a few changes. Here is a brief glimpse.

Getting around with my cane was interesting. There were ramps, uneven sidewalk paving, graduated driveways and lots of people. I used my cane constantly when we were outside and it was all good practice. If I needed to practice my white cane skills, being in the warm temperatures of Waikiki was a good place to be. The easiest walking area was alongside the canal, but there I was distressed to find an uncommon number of homeless people sleeping away the daylight hours.

I think that the biggest change for us was the absence of the International Market Place. The little shop owners with their Hawaiian trinkets and souvenirs had been replaced by a large mall with high end stores and up scale restaurants. That was a disappointment. According to our taxi driver, while tourism is still the biggest boost to the economy, construction comes in at a close second.

On the positive side, we found that our very favourite restaurant, Chuck’s Steak House, was still going strong. We spent the best night of our stay sitting on the patio enjoying the breeze from the ocean as we sipped our drinks and consumed a great meal. We were there for the early bird special, not just for the price, but so that we could experience the sunset over the water. It was all equally as good as we remembered it from our visit of two decades previously.

There is a picture with this post. Lyle took it from our table on the patio. The view is of a lovely sunset over the water framed by tall palm trees. 

Waikiki from Chuck's Steak House