ShareThisMy brother, who's been blind all his life, has his own ways of seeing things.
Rather than relying on his eyes, he depends on his hands and his feet and his ears and his nose and even, yes, his tongue. You should see him take a good look at a bowl of peach cobbler.
But mostly, when he wants to see something or someone truly and clearly, inside and out, the way God sees all of us, maybe -- Joe looks at it with his heart.
That serves him well, most of the time. But occasionally it gets him into trouble. And then he has to do what he hates more than anything, even more than being blind and barely able to walk: He has to ask for help.
Lucky for him, he has a sister who's a saint. You are right. That sister would not be me.
Four months ago, when Joe was forced to move out of an apartment complex that had been his home for 17 years, he promptly called our big sister.
Sure, he could've called me. But he's spent all his life in the South, a world apart from Las Vegas, the place my husband and I call home. Maybe he just didn't want to tell his preacher he was going to Sin City.
Anyhow, he moved in with our sister, who lived nearby. She may not be the easiest soul to live with (she once tried to shoot me just because I poured a Diet Pepsi down her pants) but she's a covered-dish supper compared to pitching a tent in the parking lot of Wal-Mart.
Never mind why he had to move. Why wasn't as important as what he would do next.
Bad things happen. You deal with them. My brother is no stranger to dealing with bad things. Cancer robbed him of his mother, his champion; his wife, the love of his life; and his dad, his very best friend.
Losing an apartment is not the same as losing the people who hang the sun and moon and stars in your sky. But if your eyes are in your heart, and your heart is broken, it can be hard finding your way.
Sister Saint had done all she could to help him back on his feet. They didn't need me to do anything, she said, except come home and make them laugh.
We all do what we can.
The flight to Charlotte took less time than it took to get a table at Cracker Barrel on the way back to my sister's place.
Joe was waiting, smoking his pipe on the porch. "Hey, sister, good to see you!"
That night and each day since, I tied knots in the legs of his pajamas just to watch him grin as he got ready for bed and quietly untied them.
I fixed tuna salad with sweet pickles, the way he likes it, and showed him how to work the icemaker to get more ice for his sweet iced-tea.
I took the guest bed, because he offered it, and let him sleep on the sofa where the cat would sink her claws in his bare toes.
I hid his cane, just like old times; threatened to fill his pipe with wax; and told him stories about goofy things we did as kids that made our mother want to double up on her nerve pills.
Best of all, one day, while Sister Saint was working, I drove him to his complex to sign some papers that might eventually get him back in his apartment and his own life.
Before signing, he apologized for forgetting to bring the stamp that bears his signature.
"Do your best," he was told, and someone would witness it.
So he took a pen and ever so deliberately drew a long, jagged mark, doing his best to reproduce his name, words he had never seen with his eyes.
I wish you could've seen it. Anybody could read it, plain as day. All you had to do was look at it with your heart.
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077, or at www.sharonrandall.com)
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