Twice this week I was asked to look at the screen of
someone’s smart phone. Interestingly, both of the people who asked knew that I
had vision challenges, but obviously they weren’t aware of the extent of those
challenges.
In the first instance, the gentleman who asked, “Are you
able to see this?” wanted to show me a picture of a painting done by his son.
When he realized that I wasn’t able to see the screen, he followed his question
by an explanation of what was there. I felt disappointed that I wasn’t able to
see his picture, but I appreciated his description.
In the second instance, a woman was attempting to show me
the large print on the screen of her phone. She didn’t actually ask, “Can’t you
see even this?” although I felt that the word even was certainly
implied. She followed her question with the explanation that she had the print
in the largest font possible.
This woman was surprised and I think she sounded a little
miffed at my inability to see the large print that she had taken the trouble to
produce. I found myself apologizing for not being able to see, but why I should
feel sorry I wasn’t quite sure. I felt as if I was a kid in school who had just
failed some important test. It reminded me of one of my early visits to an
ophthalmologist after my initial loss of vision. When I was shown the big eye
chart and couldn’t see the big E, this doctor’s comment was, “Well, try
harder!”
Now, I’m not sure why I reacted so differently to the two
questions of this past week. Was it the
questions themselves, or the manner in which they were asked? I don’t know, but
they were a reminder to myself to be more aware and sensitive to the feelings
of other people who experience various challenges and difficulties.
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