victim by perspective.

An epic story, a battle wound, and a dog. Now if you get these three things out of a traumatic experience, one that is faded into your past yet is so embedded into reality that it has almost become a personality trait, was the experience really traumatic? Maybe, but not for me, because there are multiple victims in this story.

You see, I am not a mother, but I am a sitter, and my greatest fear is for the child to get hurt. My stomach jolted like an old coaster and I sprung clumsily towards four-year-old Logan who had fallen off the chair into the large, ill-placed glass vase beside him. He was just playing, shouting with his siblings, shifting around his cold chicken nuggets, almost to trick me into thinking he was eating them. Total bliss of an ordinary day. The crash of his small body into the glass and his splitting screech symbolizes the anarchy of my mind and heart attempting to take action.

I sit in the library doing my homework, and this memory pops into my mind. My stomach drops to the ground like an anchor in the sea and I can’t sail past this single moment in time. To this day I can’t shake the guilt, and all my sympathy is still outstretched towards Logan, who in the present I can only imagine is happily playing on his kitchen chair once again. Fear is still casted over me like a shadow, thoughts shooting around in my head that the parents lost faith in me to take care of their sweet children. This feeling, this is why I’m not the only victim in the story I am about to recount.

Life at Joey’s house was alright. I went there every morning when my dad goes to work at the hotel and my mom goes to work in her Kindergarten classroom. Somethings I remember vividly. Laying there wide awake on the top bunk of one their beds. Teague, Joey’s son, sleeping almost lifelessly during our mid-day nap. I laid their awake almost every day, or so it feels like, too afraid to walk out to Joey to confess to her that I could not sleep. As much as I hated staring at the blank wall for an hour or two, I can almost hear Joey’s sigh as she hears me quietly open the bedroom door and tiptoe out to interrupt her from the only alone time she gets all day. I couldn’t hear this sigh when I was younger though, but there was still a battle in my mind each day debating whether or not I should express to Joey my true feelings of naptime, most days I lost the battle and unjustified fear paralyzed me in that bed, not wanting to know what my babysitter would say.

And now I recall the times I sat on the step. Those special occasions were reserved for when I disobeyed. One of my greatest weaknesses was not listening to Joey when she told me to quit running in the house. I was quite the adventurer, quite the ninja, and quite the superhero when I was younger. It was very difficult to get me to slow down, because there was so many important things for me to do and discover. Not even when she sat me on the step, I did not let such punishments stop me from sprinting around.

There was one day when I was being chased by a wild Teague. We were playing tag, and so I had to run fast so he couldn’t catch me. The consequence to this one was a bit more severe than I was used to. I wish I could express to you the pain this consequence brought me, the horror on Joey’s face, the confusion four-year-old Teague must have experienced. Joey was holding a pair of scissors, blade in hand the way they taught us to walk with these dangerous tools, she was moving towards the dining room table about to wrap a present. As I was playing tag, my eye somehow met the short point of the scissors in the back of Joey’s hand. Talk about a bull’s eye, am I right?

Now I was five years old at this time, it was twelve days before my sixth birthday. It is interesting to tell a story about a major life event that I don’t even remember, except a rough sketch is drafted in mind after hearing and telling the details so many times. Although I can plainly envision a few key moments, locked in my mind so I had not forgotten after all these years. Gasps for air and hard sobs as I sit upon Joey’s kitchen counter, rag covering my left eye, damp with tap water, tears, and a little blood. Relaxing in my hospital bed, nurse asking me if I’d rather have apple juice or sprite. “Sprite” I softly reply, feeling like a princess receiving room service. The royal feeling leaves as my older sister plays Full House on the tv in my hospital room, and I am unable to see the screen. My thrill seeking self, enjoying the ride my dear mother is giving in a wheelchair, and then gently buckling me into the backseat of her car. Another countertop, instead this one is in my home and my head is forced back and I watch the milky drop of a steroid fall and then I quickly blink after I feel the heavy splash on my cornea.

A CAT scan, a cornea transplant, a cataract surgery and stitching my flappy iris back in place. These are the scary things my parents had to experience and remember. My older sister told me this is the only time she has seen my mother openly cry, watching her young child go through such extensive care. This is probably why my parents are so cautious. That, and my ophthalmologist, Dr. Mifflin, has drilled into their minds that the worst thing that could happen is that my eye gets hurt again.

I’ve always been an active child. I walked into the sporting goods store, jumping up and down with glee and utter excitement to get some cleats, shin guards, and a new soccer ball. My dad had just enrolled me in soccer. Going to my first practice my stomach was tied up in knots and my hand was quivering, not really knowing what to expect when I got onto the field. My dad went with me to the practice. He was always very involved in sports, he once titled himself the “Kickball King”, but he never played soccer. I get to know my teammates, played a scrimmage game, and one thing led to the other and my dad was somehow the assistant coach to my sixth-grade soccer team. Don’t really know how that happened. But from that point my father made it very clear to me that I was not allowed to be the goalie. Not in practice, not during games, not at all. Conveniently he was always there to tell me not to be the goalie, even though I was more of a midfield player anyway. My dad was just so cautious, afraid that I would get smacked in the face with the soccer ball, break my glasses, and somehow hurt my eye. Jokes on him, I got smacked in the face plenty of times with a soccer ball anyway.

This behavior from my father did not stop at soccer. One casual day, in my preteen years, I was laying on my parent’s bed with my mom. We were watching the tv, probably a dated sitcom or a murder mystery on Investigation Discovery, but I brought up to her my newfound dream. Karate. I sat there elaborately explaining to my mother that I want to feel the discipline, the dedication it took. And when that didn’t work, I admitted to her I just wanted to be a ninja. That convinced her enough for her to say, “Go talk to dad about it.” I was one step closer to achieving my dream.

I scurry down the hardwood hallway into the living room and skip right in front of my father who is sitting in “his chair”. I express to him how much I want to do karate. It was a hard no. What if I get hit the eye? This is his only response. I explain to him how silly he is, hitting in the face is totally against the rules. His answer does not change.

Besides missing out on a couple of things in my youth, the painfully bad eyesight, which includes a bifocal in my left eye and hard contacts, daily prescriptions and biannual doctor visits, I think my eye is pretty legit. You see, as a result to this unique injury, my pupil has not changed sizes since that day. Since November 17, 2006 my pupil has not adapted to the light and has looked pretty warped at times. I sit there analyzing my eyes in the bathroom mirror, comparing the two of them. I stare fascinated observing that my left pupil is not perfectly circular, as is my right, and my green eye is somewhat milky. I walk out into the daylight, going to work at Lagoon Amusement Park, my eye instinctually closes, the beaming rays being too much for the broken pupil to handle. But then there are times when the sun is hidden behind me, and my eye has the strength to open up to the world. This is when I get questions like “Are you blind in that eye” or, my personal favorite, “Are you high?”.

“No”, I respond laughing. I briefly explain my story, watching their face wince, with squinted eyes and a slightly gaped mouth they lean towards me intrigued. I love talking about my eye. Every person is unique, and special in their own ways. The giddy smile on a girl’s face when sees a yellow Labrador. The heavy, yet breathy, cackle of your best friend when you simply slide her a glance in the library. The electric feeling of pain and exhaust as the runner gallops down the street. These are all little things, but these things are part of them and together, in addition to many other intricate details, it makes them whole. This is the same for my eye. Although it was a freak accident that got me this way, it seems like this is how it was meant to be, just one of those many things that make me, me. Because I don’t know what it would be like to live without it. As weird as it is, my eye is almost a personality trait. My friends and family laugh about it all of the time. It is a small part of my life, but it makes me feel so interesting, like I have a story worth sharing.

I am someone who believes that everything happens for a reason. Every small thing, every sad thing, and every injury. I have openly expressed how I feel about my eye. At times it is hard, when I am staring uncomfortably wide-eyed as my doctor plucks a loose stitch out of my eye with tweezers or when I am trying to see the words across the room, but there is no way my eyes can focus that extensively. At times it is fascinating, when I am in medical anatomy and I learn more about how I am unique, or when I look into the mirror to see my pupils are noticeably different sizes and I am struck with amazement and awe. Even after all these years, it is still so interesting. Despite this, I have not learned anything significant from that major life event. Why did it happen?

Maybe it is because I got Copper. My dad called my mom early on my sixth birthday. He proposed the idea of getting me a dog. She has never been much of a dog person, more of a cat lady, even though she has never had one for herself. My mother felt bad for me though, and she tells her husband yes, that he can get a dog. Conveniently he was already at the shelter, and he picked out a copper-toned coonhound. Later that day I leaned over the couch in the basement, as I stalk my father as he goes through the mudroom into the garage. I see a brown streak that I could have sworn was an adorable creature that I would someday meet. I was right! Later that day I was presented with Copper. My best friend for thirteen years, and that friendship still lives on today.

That couldn’t possibly be the reason I get poked in the eye with scissors. Could it? No. Then I consider Joey. I can only imagine how much guilt, pain, and regret she felt after this experience. Sure, I felt plenty physical pain, how much can that really compare to the emotional anguish of knowing you caused surgeries, and medical care that will last forever in a little girl. That is a tough comparison. She was still my babysitter after that day, my parents did not blame her for the what had happened to me. Something I am grateful for, because I feel worse for Joey than I do for myself. Maybe she had to learn something from this experience. I mean, she does have her own story after all. The time she poked a five-year-old girl in the eye with scissors.

If there is one thing we can all learn from this story, it is don’t run with scissors and don’t run while someone else is holding scissors.