Driving Blind

My Uncle Jeff is legally blind. When he was in high school he started losing his vision, and it went quickly. I grew up seeing his lack of vision as normal. I don’t remember if we ever had a big “revealing” or if it was just something I grew to understand, but my Uncle Jeff always looked sidelong at you. He always sat right next to the television, he asked his wife whether the platter in front of him had the dark sausage rolls or the light sausage rolls, because he couldn’t tell. He earned his degree from TTU in psychology, he holds a job working for the state as a psychologist, and he even competes in triathlons and half marathons. I’ve always respected him for just being a good person, never mind his disability.

This semester, though, I learned something new about my uncle. At the age of 16, his vision fading fast, my grandparents, his parents, spent thousands of dollars on telescopic glasses, hoping to buy him a little more time with his eyes. He took advantage of this and got his driver’s license. He never drove, but my grandfather made sure he had a car so that his friends could drive him around, even if they didn’t have a car themselves. What I learned, though, was that he still has a valid license. His oldest daughter, my cousin, is 15 and has a learner’s permit. The law states that anyone holding a learner’s permit must be supervised by a parent or guardian with a valid driver’s license in the front seat. My uncle, therefore, is technically able to do this, despite the fact that he can no longer read without extreme magnification.

When my grandmother told me this, she was so proud of him. She started crying thinking about how he’s held onto his driver’s license and his pride. At first, I was impressed too. But then I thought past his disability and thought that maybe, this was simply shockingly illegal. I am torn now between respecting him for being as normal as possible, and feeling appalled that he would be so irresponsible to consider himself adequate supervision for his daughter as she learns to drive.