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I’m 30 and I was blinded at age 7 by an accident.
At that age I was left in total darkness, that is, I was blind. I
was a lively child with a strong will to seize a big world. Thanks
to that strength I managed to win over blindness. I could go back
to school due to the use of Braille and today I’m a professional
masseur, I’m married and have a wonderful son. It was a tough
battle until reaching this point. Life isn’t easy for anyone
but it’s especially hard on those bearing some kind of disability.
But it’s through difficulties that we learn to see life’s
value and find the courage to fight for it. Living in normality is
too easy, people get tired and end up not knowing what they want
out of life.
Today I’m very happy and feel fully integrated both in society
and in my job to the point where people sometimes forget that I can’t
see. They candidly stretch their hands toward me for a handshake
and expect me to react or, for instance, my workmates ask me to get
something for them referring to the object by its colour and not
its shape. Obviously this is due to the natural way I face my life.
Step by step, I learned to face the world and to see it in a different
way according to my new reality. I created images of things and people,
forming a world of my own as real as the world of those who can see.
Today I see and I managed to leave darkness behind. Humans see with
their brains, not their eyes. Hence, I see the world according to
my reality and I’m no longer blind, I’m visually-impaired.
That is, I don’t see with my eyes but with all my other senses.
All this thanks to my will, my courage and lots of optimism. I didn’t
give in to resentment or to self-pity. For those who cannot win over
this barrier will never leave blindness behind. Blind is the one
who looks at a stone and asserts it’s a diamond. That is true
blindness.
Even though I got free from darkness I sometimes feel frustrated
because our world was built thinking only about the visually-non-impaired,
forgetting that anybody is a potential candidate to blindness. That
is why I call to everybody, the visually-non-impaired, to claim for
a change whenever they see anything that by distraction or any other
reason might jeopardize their safety. We urgently need your cooperation.
Never forget that whenever you do something for us, you’ll
be aiding yourselves.
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