76) My Failing Sight

I decided to buy a knitting machine with the idea that I would be able to make and sell jerseys so as to supplement our income. It was a wonderful machine and I worked very hard to master it. I did manage to make plain jerseys and did not do too badly out of them but I never really managed to master all the fancy stitches that it was suppose to be able to produce. With the machine I could produce a full sized adult jersey in a couple of hours; but it took me longer than that to sew it together. I would knit all day and then sew the garments together in the evening. I always had some hand sewing on the go.

I had noticed that my eyesight was deteriorating and felt that I should get my eyes tested but as we did not have any medical insurance I kept putting it off. One evening we went to visit Cecilia and Derrick and Cecilia told us that when her step father Fred Petzer had died recently his widow, (his second wife) with whom Cecilia had been on friendly terms had offered a number of Fred’s belongings to Cecilia. Not long before Fred had died he had had new glasses made. His widow said that the frames had been very good ones and although she did not think the lenses would suit Derrick maybe he could use the frames next time he needed new spectacles. Cecilia handed the glasses to Derrick as we were all sitting in the kitchen together. He put them on and he looked so funny we all doubled over with laughter. I don’t know why they looked so funny, I think it was that they were too small for his face but they did not suit him and we just laughed and laughed. Then Cecilia tried them on but they did not look so funny on her so they were passed around us all to see if any of us would look as funny as Derrick did. When they came to me I put them on and was amazed. I could see so well out of them, in fact it just showed me how poor my eyes were. I had not thought that they had deteriorated so much. Cecilia immediately said that I could have them as they were no good to either her or Derrick and that she was glad that someone could use them. At that time I only needed glasses for reading and these were just right for me.

A few weeks later we were once again visiting Cecilia and Derrick and Derrick’s brother David was also there. We were all in the lounge watching TV together and I had with me as always, some jerseys that needed to be sewn together. I was wearing my new glasses that David had never seen me wear before. He said “How long have you been wearing glasses Marina” and everyone in the room answered together “Just since Fred died”. It was completely spontaneous and unrehearsed so we had a jolly good laugh over that too. When I did eventually get round to having my eyes tested the optician asked me “How long have you been wearing glasses?” and I nearly said “Just since Fred died” but I did explain that the glasses had belonged to my husband’s late step father and that I had been wearing them for about a year for reading and I had never had my eyes tested. I thought he was going to read me the riot act but he just asked if I suffered from headaches or sore eyes and I was able to tell him that I didn’t. He told me that his own brother had been wearing the reading glasses that could be bought in the chemist for a few dollars for years. Although he had tried to persuade him to have his eyes tested he would not and was happy with his cheap chemist specs. The optician told me that as we get older we should have the health of our eyes checked fairly regularly but if we found glasses that helped us to see better and they did not give us headaches or sore eyes there was nothing wrong with them at all. So I wore Fred’s glasses for many years and whenever I was looking for them I would always ask “Has anyone seen Fred’s glasses?”

One day I was in front of my bedroom mirror with my glasses on and took a long hard look at myself. I then took off my glasses and looked again. I thought “These glasses really don’t suit me, I look much younger and better with them off.” When I put them back the penny dropped and I realised that the reason I looked better with them off was because without then I was not seeing myself so clearly. It struck me as very funny that I could be silly not to see that I only looked better because without the glasses I could not see what I really looked like. I wonder if we are always as “blind” to our own faults. I just started laughing and could not stop. Jonny and the boys came to see what the joke was but it took me ages to explain it to them I was laughing so much.