Blindness frightened me at first because I did not know what kind of world I could build for them. Then I watched them turn toward my voice, reach for each other, and laugh anyway.
I packed three lunchboxes every day.
That taught me what mattered.
The girls grew fast. I learned how to braid hair by watching YouTube videos while three impatient heads sat in front of me. My first attempts looked terrible. Gabriella once told me I had made her look like a scarecrow.
I packed three lunchboxes every day.
I labeled drawers in braille.
I went to meetings, mobility training, choir performances, and one middle-school recorder concert where Nora played three wrong notes.
I missed a lot of things for myself.
I worked too much.
I slept too little.
I missed a lot of things for myself.
I never missed a single thing for them.
By the time they were teenagers, people liked calling me inspirational. I hated that word. My real life was permission slips, overtime, burnt grilled cheese, tangled hair, and trying to stay patient when all three girls were talking at once and the dog was barking and the school nurse was calling before breakfast.
