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

[Cindy Ray]

Oh, what a beautiful article. I had missed it before. I just truly loved it.
Cindy


-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Sami
Osborne via blindtlk
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 8:59 PM
To: gwunder at earthlink.net; Blind Talk Mailing List <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Sami Osborne <ligne14 at verizon.net>; gwunder at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] {Spam?} RE: how about painting?

Gary,

What a nice article your wife wrote! I never thought, in all of my 18 years,
that a blind person would be capable of painting.  
That's so cool! Now I believe in the philosophy that we can do anything that
we set our minds to 100%.  Before reading that article, I may have only
believed in it 99%, but now that I know that it is possible for a blind
person to do artwork successfully with little to no assistance, that makes
me fully, totally, and completely believe in the philosophy.

Please make sure to thank your wife on my part for writing such a beautiful,
inspirational, and invigorating article!

Happy St.  Patrick's day to all!

Sami

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Wunder via blindtlk <blindtlk at nfbnet.org
To: "'Blind Talk Mailing List'" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org Date sent: Wed, 16 Mar
2016 20:14:44 -0500
Subject: [Blindtlk] {Spam?} RE:  how about painting?

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.


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