correcting vision

My heart breaks a wee bit for my only child.  Today he got his first pair of glasses.  In the scheme of things, it really isn’t a big deal.  People get them every day.  People wear them every day.  But this is the first for my son.  The first corrective anything he’s ever had to deal with.  All he could say was that he was nervous.  

What are you nervous about?

Kids making fun of me.

Fuck.  What does one say to that?  You know they will.  At some point, some kidis going to say something mean that my son will try to blow off and fail.  It will hurt his tender heart.

The lady behind the counter throws some platitudes at him.  He smiles politely, not believing a word she says.

Once we leave, he says it again. I sit him on the bench for a talk.  The whole time my heart is bleeding for him, because I’ve been in his shoes.  I got glasses at his age though for different reasons than his.  I was made fun of, I had my heart hurt.  There isn’t anything I can really say to prevent it either, that hurt.  But I try. I try to give him a viewpoint from which he can safely stand to defend himself against the arrows others will sling at him.

What is important here?  The comments of others or the fact that you can see better?  Are you going to let them decide how you should look, what you should wear or are you going to be able to see?  Ignore them.  Laugh with them.  Ask them if that is the best they can do. Remember maybe you’ll get lucky and this will fix your brain/eye issue and you won’t have to wear them for very long.  But you have to wear them for this to happen.

All of these options, I tell him.  What I really want to do is hide him from this growing up mark.  I can’t though because if it isn’t this, it will be something else.  I promise him that if the glasses don’t repair his vision issue, if he ends up having to wear something to correct his vision, that as soon as it is, if it is, medically possible, his dad and I will pay for permanent vision correction like lasik or whatever the next generation fix happens to be.  What else is there to say?

I watch him try to put a smile over his worry.  I watch him learn to adjust to his new reality and all I want to do is cry.