VI Gathering

We had a gathering at my daughter's VI friend, Aditi's, house.  The gathering was an idea her mother had to bring together all the VI teachers our children have had since they were in preschool.   The community is a small one in the school system and all the teachers know each other so it was a friendly bunch of us that gathered around the tables to talk while the children played.

Her mother, now my friend, kept giving me credit for helping.   I felt badly taking much credit—at all—seeing how I coordinated an Evite for the most part whereas she held the event at her house, cooked Indian food for two days, catered additional dishes and hosted us all with her husband.  But I accepted her words and passed back as much of the credit as I could.

The children had fun doing things that were in part appropriate for visually impaired children because two of the children (my daughter and Aditi) were blind and some of the other children were siblings of theirs or had parents who worked in the field.   On the whole, the children all seemed to have fun, doing Karaoke in one part of the house while we had adult conversation and ate on the main floor.

I had a conversation with a friend today afterward.   He had asked me a question about when I thought my life changed because of my daughter's loss of vision.   It was a singular thing to ask, because I had been thinking of just that as I listened to all the VI-related discussions.  I fit in with this group.   This is my world: the parent of a blind child.   I fit in well.   When did everything change?

I'm going to do something I never do: I'm going to go back and read the blog from years ago.   I'm going to relive the time when my daughter initially lost her sight.   I remember it today, but I don't know that I remember it the same after four years.   That's what the blog was created for in part: to write down things as they happen so I don't have to rely on memories alone.

I don't know if it will be hard to read or not.   I'm not sure how much of it I can read, but I think I need to.

The Big Boy Update:  My son fits right in with a group of children that include some who are blind.   He understands it without thinking about it because he's been living with a blind sibling for half his life.   Many times I've thought about what it will be like for him as an adult.   How will his sister's lack of vision impact his life?  I can hear him in a deeper voice saying to an unknown person in the future, "my sister is blind" and then going on to talk about something related.   He can't explain how it's affected his life today, maybe, if I'm still writing this blog in years to come he'll lterll me about life as his sister's brother.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter didn't want to go to Aditi's house today because they haven't been getting along.   Two weeks on medication to help stabilize her and she was close to back to her old self.   She had a very good time and asked if we could please stay for longer, not wanting to leave when the party was over.