Zena Cooper - What You See When You Cant See: How Blindness Helped One Woman Discover the True Beauty of Life

Published in the United Kingdom by:

Hay House UK Ltd, The Sixth Floor, Watson House,
54 Baker Street, London W1U 7BU

Tel: +44 (0)20 3927 7290; Fax: +44 (0)20 3927 7291

www.hayhouse.co.uk

Published in the United States of America by:

Hay House Inc., PO Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA 92018-5100

Tel: (1) 760 431 7695 or (800) 654 5126

Fax: (1) 760 431 6948 or (800) 650 5115; www.hayhouse.com

Published in Australia by:

Hay House Australia Ltd, 18/36 Ralph St, Alexandria NSW 2015

Tel: (61) 2 9669 4299; Fax: (61) 2 9669 4144; www.hayhouse.com.au

Published in India by:

Hay House Publishers India, Muskaan Complex,
Plot No.3, B-2, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110 070

Tel: (91) 11 4176 1620; Fax: (91) 11 4176 1630; www.hayhouse.co.in

Text Zena Cooper, 2019

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

The information given in this book should not be treated as a substitute for professional medical advice; always consult a medical practitioner. Any use of information in this book is at the readers discretion and risk. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any loss, claim or damage arising out of the use, or misuse, of the suggestions made, the failure to take medical advice or for any material on third-party websites.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-78817-319-3

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-78817-371-1

E-book ISBN: 978-1-78817-326-1

The poor, poor souls. What is it they see? What would it be like to see the world through their eyes? It must be awful to have vision like that. I just cant imagine what its like for them to live with the sight (or lack of) that they have. They must miss out so much on the true meaning of life. Bless them. After all, who would want to see with perfect vision, as theyre so busy looking with their eyes, they have forgotten to look with their heart.

With three white cursors flashing on the dark screen, I focus in on what I think is the middle one. As each cursor merges with the next in a captivating haze, my mind starts to play Give us a clue. With four large, wobbly words typed on my magnified screen, my fingers trace the keyboard for the right keys to tap away at next. I really want to stop annoying the narrator on my computer, as although she patiently alerts me to yet another mistake Ive made, Im sure I can hear her impatience grow. Is that possible? As I can only see a triple-vision blurry mass in front of me, my eyes try to decipher what my fingers have typed. It looks about the size of a six-letter word that takes up the whole screen. The first letter is larger and rounded at the top, so I guess its a b. The last letter drops down below the others, so I guess thats the y. By this method of deduction, my brain tells me Ive typed in the word beauty correctly. In an almost surprised voice, the usually narky narrator confirms it, and I feel elated: this time-consuming process is finally getting me somewhere.

Typing while blind is not the easiest of tasks, but when I get it right its the most fulfilling feeling ever. Even if it does take what feels like an eternity to do what most people do in seconds, its still done.

In many ways, I feel like the outsider looking in on a world full of people who dont always appreciate the gifts they receive each day. The gift of being able to read words from afar has always left me speechless: when a person reads words on a sign from many feet away without needing binoculars, it feels like Im standing next to a superhero. How people recognize others down a street without having to hear their voices is another unsolved mystery. Do they know something I dont?

For the sighted, sightseeing must be a tick-list haven rather than a health and safety nightmare. Ive heard rumours that in the sighted world they use those superhero eyes to live in an altered state, using only their vision to live day by day. What must that be like? And yet, in other ways, it feels like I live inside the world of truth, observing many people living a half-hearted life full of voids. Seeing people not living their lives fully can be frustrating.

Blindness affects individuals differently. Theres no universal answer to What is it like to be blind?, yet to me, blindness is the key connection to the true meaning of life. Growing up with impaired vision that I hid from the outside world meant I learned to live in an alternative way. I learned to be self-reliant from a young age. I learned that people and situations can be transient, yet nature is a constant. I learned that others used their vision to tell them about the outside world, while I used my intuition and other senses. I learned that the world was bigger than any problem that presented itself. I also learned that peoples poor decisions dont define who they really are. A part of me would love to call the unsighted world the world of insights; living without functional vision really does give you insight into the real meaning of life.

The bridge between the sighted and unsighted world can be rickety. Many people may go from being sighted to losing their sight, remaining permanently on the sight-loss side of the bridge; only a few cross into the visual world after surgery. Yet, on whichever side of the bridge we dwell, I know theres a whole world surrounding us, and its full of happiness should we choose to embrace it.

Ive lived my life in the unsighted world, but for four months I lived in the middle of that bridge. After surgery in my right eye I gained a little more sight it was not functional vision, but for the first time ever I was able to make out faces; I could see the ophthalmologist and my partner. Close up, I could see the shape of their eyes, their nostrils and the outlines of their mouths. I then found I could kind of read the sign on the front of the bus (although it was still more guesswork than precision). I remember thinking, This is a taste of what it must be like to see. It was not easy to get used to, as the contrast between the two eyes was immense. Seeing with my right eye was like looking through a warped telescope rather than a blurry veil. I was in a hall of mirrors in a sensory-filled fairground where ants appear two feet tall and sticks look like tree trunks. Confusion was an understatement, but at least the experience gave me a little clarity around what it was like to live with sight. Later, I discovered that the surgery had caused irreversible damage. And this meant that I now had reduced vision in an already blurry world. I underwent another operation to remove my lens implant, which meant reverting to my old way of life. As mad as this may sound, my reduced vision meant sinking into a more blissful existence.

After dipping a toe into the sighted world, I was glad to return to the safe world Id grown up in. Living without much sight in a sighted world felt like I was an undercover detective casing the place for clues on how the sighted lived. I figured cracking the code to living life in the sighted world lay in observing these miraculous people in covert ways. The things I learned from their way of life made me question my way of seeing the world in which we coexist. Disability and adversity can allow an individual to develop abilities that can take them to a whole new realm of existence. My new realm was that of pure beauty. So I began to focus on how I experienced the world in comparison to others.