-- "Can I get back my eyesight just for a week?"
-- "Why a week?"
-- "I want to see my mother at least for a time. She had forbidden me to go to the protests, yet I did and didn't see her anymore on my return."
This is a conversation between a spokesperson and a guy who lost both eyes in the revolution that took place in Bangladesh last year. There are many with such sacrifices, mostly the students of the country.
Upon hearing this conversation, my eyes were wet, I too felt this agony of that boy, like how that would be to see everything in darkness, all we are left behind with just the memories, the same memory to recall over and over again, nothing else.
If you went blind overnight what aspects of your life would you miss the most and why?
Coincidentally I got to come across this today, at first, I thought I would avoid this and pick something else, but trust me, I couldn't get over those lines I wrote at the beginning and just thinking what if it happened to me, Oh Allah, forgive me please, i dont wanna experience this in my lifetime, nor I would wish for anyone else.
The very first thing I am already visualizing is the smiles, happy faces of my mother, my partner, my loved ones. I could never accept that I won't be able to see them, never ever.
I can't express to you how beautiful she looks smiling, her eyes, the way she talks, the way her eyes give expressions, happy or angry, her eyes tell them all. I can stare at a thousand years on her while she is talking at her fullest; she is the evergreen soul that melted my stoned heart. Yeah, that's my partner I'm talking about her.
My mother? I live far from her, and we don't talk on video calls, but when I return to my hometown on weekends, we talk for hours. The love and affection we see in our mother's face, nowhere to be found. No matter how much hale and hearty you are, on your return, she would always find that you are not eating well, sleeping well, not caring for yourself; she would regret it, and those expressions are only seen on a mother's face, the motherly love you don't want to miss ever.
Now you tell me, what on earth can get me these if I go blind overnight? Anything to compensate me? Anything you can trade for? To me? Nothing.
If I be practical, how am I gonna live?
I am a person of admiring skills; to me, skills are what feed me, pay me, earn me respect, and everything. What if I can't continue what I am doing due to going blind? Oh no, I can't lose my self-respect, can't be a burden to anyone else, will never accept people looking at me with sympathy, I have my self-respect, ethics, pride, integrity, and values that I can't compromise with the shortcomings of getting blind all of a sudden. It might seem rude or impractical, but this is how I am feeling. I know how society looks at a person with such disabilities, we acknowledge the shortcomings of it's just like I don't wanna be at that stage.
"Oh Allah, please forgive us for the sins we are committing. Don't refrain us from watching the universe you have created for us, how beautiful it is! Don't take away the blessings you have blessed us with."
So, at the end, all I can say is, if I see myself getting blind overnight, I will lose myself, my world, and my purpose of living. I would feel like the burden to myself, let alone the others.