[Blindtlk] {Spam?} RE: how about painting?

[Gary Wunder]

For whatever help it might be, I volunteer my wife to talk with you. What she wrote about painting is below and she can be reached at debbiewunder at centurytel.net.
The Gift
by Debbie Wunder

	All of our children's birthdays are special, but some more than others. When my youngest daughter Abbey was about to turn ten, I asked her to think hard about what she wanted on her special occasion. She said she would be happy if we could redecorate her room, buy her some new clothes, or get her a GameCube. "Which of those do you really want" was the question I asked her, and she thought through the choices. She knew I wasn't enthused about a GameCube, since I’d already warned her that her game time could not cut into her reading time. She was old enough to know that winter was coming and that new clothes were something she was likely to get whether they were on her birthday list or not. Eventually she answered: "I want to fix up my room and paint it in mixed colors." I immediately thought about the cost of repainting. For a moment I felt  sadness and regret for offering something I might not be able to afford. But after my initial shock I began to feel excited. Here is why: I have an addiction; it is not to chocolate, drugs, or alcohol—well okay, maybe a slight addiction to chocolate. But the addiction I am speaking of is HGTV, the Home and Garden Television Network. I can spend hours watching programs such as Design on a Dime, Trading Spaces, or just about any fix-it-up show they carry. One of my strengths has always been arts and crafts. A wonderful possibility was taking shape in my head and my heart: I could give my daughter something more than a gift off a store shelf—I could give her a gift that showed my love, my talent, and my creativity. Her tenth-birthday gift would be something she would treasure for a long time to come. I decided that I would do it on my own, my way of providing a very special gift to her.
	I told Abbey that fixing up her room would be her present, and I anxiously began to plan the project. We made a trip to the paint store to choose her colors. I told her to pick three that would complement one another. I already knew that her first choice would be some shade of pink. I was right; she chose a color called “passionate pink,” otherwise known as Pepto-Bismol pink. The other two were a slightly lighter shade of pink and purple. She asked what I was going to do with three different colors, and I told her this would be part of her surprise.
	From HGTV I learned that you need one wall to be the focal point. It can contain a piece of artwork or furniture, or the focal point can be the wall itself. I could not afford to buy new furniture, and neither did I have an eye-popping piece of artwork, so it would have to be the painted wall that made the room. I had a good idea what could make that wall the focal point if only I could figure out how to do it: I remembered Abbey telling me that one day she would like to travel with me to Mexico to see a mountaintop that is filled with beautiful butterflies in the winter. This provided the inspiration, but could I possibly paint a wall of butterflies? Then it hit me: I realized I could use a large rubber stamp to stencil the image. I used two of the colors Abbey had chosen, painting one half of the butterfly in one color and the second half with the other. Those contrasting colors would make the butterflies stand out.
	When the weekend before her special day drew near, I went out and got the other items I would need. I also arranged for Abbey to   visit a friend for a slumber party and made plans to paint her room.
	The night before she left, Abbey began questioning me about how I was going to redecorate. It was clear that she was skeptical but didn't want to show it. Some of her skepticism was whether an adult could do the kind of makeover a ten-year-old would want, but some was because my husband Gary and I are blind. Painting is not something blind people typically do, and Abbey was worried about what she would return to at the end of her weekend. I reminded her that we did all kinds of things that others thought blind people couldn't do and asked if I had ever disappointed her or broken a promise. "No, Mommy," was her reply, but her tone was less confident than her words. "Will Megan help you?" Megan is one of Abbey’s older sisters, and Abbey has always adored her, respected her judgment, and admired her honesty.
	"No, I am going to do the job myself, but of course Megan will want to take a look once it is done, and we all know how Megan always gives her honest opinion.” I assured Abbey that I knew what I was doing, told her to have a good weekend, and once again promised she'd be happy with her room when she returned.
	The initial steps were easy. The first thing I did was remove all the switch plates and socket covers. I then taped around all of the woodwork, door frames included. I probably used more tape than necessary, but I wanted to protect the woodwork and thought that I might get to it  faster when I was painting than  someone who could see. Then I put tape between the walls and the ceiling. I put plastic on the floor, unwrapped the brushes and the rollers, got out the cans of paint and a couple of paint trays, and closed the door to the room I would soon turn into my daughter's dream place.
	But when it came time to open that paint, put it on the roller, and start painting the wall, I  fell apart inside. The thought of painting the room energized me; the thought of taking that brush in hand and messing up an already painted wall terrified me. Could I follow through to create something worthy of my daughter's tenth birthday, or would I create a tenth birthday memory that would shame us all? I sat down on a stool and began  to cry. I was a sweating, shaking, crying mess, and I couldn't think of any easy way out of what I had committed to do.
	Then my cell phone rang, and my older daughter Megan said she was dropping by to see how the room was coming. I started to tell her I was at my wits' end and was paralyzed by doubt, and then it came to me: God was delivering a response to my unvoiced prayer. Megan was coming over. She could help. I would do my share, but she would be there to do the hard parts, to supervise my work, and to make sure I didn't mess things up. I could still deliver on my promise, and no one would have to know how scared I had been of failing.
	When she arrived, Megan could see that I had done all the preparation but hadn't yet started on the wall. I told her I was nervous about the project, and I suggested we have a girl's night, order a pizza, laugh about some memories and stories, catch up with one another, and together  create a gift her sister would love. She was not enthusiastic about spending the evening together, reminding me that it was Friday and that she already had plans with her friends. Again I began to feel panic, and it showed. Noticing my imminent meltdown, Megan began to repeat back to me things I had said to her since she was a baby. She reminded me that I had told her I could do anything I set my mind to and that blindness only made the way I did a thing different—not better, not worse, just different. She said that I had always been as good as my word, that I had never let my family down, and that she was so proud of the mom I was. She told me that there was no way I'd let Abbey down, that I was perfectly capable of painting that room, and that I needed to put myself back together, remember how much I loved to do artsy craftsy things, and that, by the end of the weekend, we'd all have something to treasure. I heard what she said, and, although they were nice words that were exactly what I had dreamed she would one day say to me about raising her, my fear held fast, and I begged her to stay and help.
	After listening to my pathetic protests, Megan turned to me and said, "Okay, I'll help you," and immediately she went for the paint can and the roller. She dipped the roller into the can, and I gave a big sigh of relief when I heard paint being applied to the wall. We would do this together. I could hand her brushes and pour paint into the trays, but she could do the painting, and we'd do a great job together. But my elation was short-lived. The next thing I heard was the roller being placed back in its tray and Megan saying, "Okay, Mom. I've started it. It's your turn. Bye!"
	I laughed, and in a shaking voice I said, "Oh Megan, don't tease me. I don't think I can take it tonight."
	"I'm not teasing," she said. "Mom, this is Friday night, and I have plans. You told Abbey you could do this, and you can. You've been planning it for two months. This is only paint; you can't break anything. Now get to it, and I'll come by tomorrow to see how you're doing. Bye. Love you." With a hug and a kiss, out the door she went.
	Again I was alone, but now Abbey's wall, which had been an off-white color, had a big pink stripe across it. There was no turning back. Eventually I pulled myself together, thought about what Megan had said, said a silent prayer for God's help, and started to paint. I painted all that night and much of the next day. I used a specially-made stamp to place the imprint of butterflies on the wall, being careful to ensure that each went on at a slightly different angle to give the appearance of the butterflies in flight. I had to be careful about their spacing since being too close together or too far apart would ruin the intended effect.
	When Saturday night came, I was a boiling mix of emotions: exhausted, exhilarated, proud, scared, anxious for Megan to return and give me her always painfully honest opinion, and afraid of what she might say. When she entered the room, I felt as tense as I have ever felt. “Hey, Mom, it looks great! This will be the best present ever. Abbey will be so excited."
	Again I began to cry, but these were not tears of fear but tears of relief. When Abbey came home on Sunday and looked at her room, the joy she felt wasn't conveyed just in what she said but in her tone. She kept saying," Thank you, Mommy, oh thank you, Mommy. This is the best birthday present ever!" After all the fear, all the anxiety, all the concern that I had pushed too hard, promised too much, I felt supremely happy. There wasn't one trace of surprise or amazement in her little voice—just appreciation for a promised birthday gift that was exactly what she had asked to receive. Again I cried. This time I shed tears of joy—I had given my ten-year-old a gift she would remember for the rest of her life. I had done what I said I would—just as she expected I would do.
	We always tell people that blindness poses two problems: one is the physical lack of sight, the other the reaction that we and others have to being blind. A big part of what we do in the National Federation of the Blind involves changing the attitudes of the public with the words we say and the actions they can see, but it is hard to measure something as large as a change in public acceptance. What we can more easily see is the reality our children come to know as we tell them what we believe about blindness, and they then compare those words with what they see day after day and year after year. My daughter Megan believed what I told her about the role blindness played in my life, and she accepted as true what I said about being able to do anything. She then reflected or echoed back that belief to me at a time when I was down on myself and was questioning whether I had promised to do something beyond my capabilities. So certain was she that I could succeed that she placed me on a road that ran in only one direction—forward—and left me alone to navigate that road by myself.
	The Bible tells us that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and I am a living example of that truth. To my daughter that newly decorated room was something she enjoyed, treasured, and proudly showed her friends. But soon she was no longer ten and wanted a bigger room downstairs. Now she is in college, the newly decorated room a treasured but distant memory. But for me the picture of that room will always remain in my mind, and the accomplishment it represents often reminds me that I can do more than I think I can, that I should encourage others to go beyond what they think they can do, and that sometimes discomfort is a necessary ingredient in finding the joy of real accomplishment. Blindness almost stopped me from giving my youngest daughter the best gift I've ever given, but it was my older daughter's faith, her belief in my ability, and her reluctance to accept anything less than my best that has made this one of the most treasured stories of my life.