For Hollister resident Mary Church, who is blind, the perception
of the world around her is different than that of most. But she
wants others to know: ‘I’m just like everyone else’
It’s a typical day after school at Rancho San Justo in Hollister for Jessica “Jay” Church and her younger sister, Mary. They get off the school bus and their mom, Kathleen, meets them on the door step. Their dog, Vickie, runs around, tail wagging, begging for pets.
Jay, 13, bends down, giving Vickie, a yellow lab, the affection she’s looking for and heads inside. Mary, 12, tucks a white cane under her arm and bends over, extending her arms and calling to her dog. It takes Vickie a moment to realize someone else is waiting to pet her, but she soon runs over to Mary and rubs her back under the girl’s searching hands. Soon both girl and dog head for the house. Vickie bounds through the door, and Mary uses her white cane to locate the steps and entryway.
Mary has been blind since birth, having inherited a rare eye disorder called Norrie disease.
“We knew it was in the family because my brothers all have it,” Kathleen said. “They’re blind and mentally retarded. But we thought it only affected males. We had Jessica and she was fine, so when we had Mary, we assumed she would be fine, too. After a couple of months, we figured out that something was wrong, and we took her to the doctor and found out she was blind. But that’s the only thing that was wrong. She didn’t have any mental retardation, and she wasn’t deaf, which can be another affect of Norrie disease.”
Mary went to a special elementary school in Salinas, but when it came time for junior high, she and her family decided to try regular public school. Mary became the first blind student to attend regular classes at Rancho.
“People expect me to be slow, but I’m not. I’m in the top percent of my class,” Mary said with a hint of exasperation. “People also act different around me. They think I must be different, but I’m normal. They also think that ‘blind’ is a curse word or something. But it’s not – that’s what I am.”
The Daily Routine
Jay and Mary get up early every week day and take turns using the bathroom to get ready for school. All of Mary’s clothes can mix and match, so she doesn’t have to worry about walking out the door in a mis-matched outfit. She knows which drawers have her tops, jeans or shorts. Mary has picked out all the clothes she owns because she can tell if she likes them by how they feel.
At school, Mary uses Braille machines to do her classwork. At snack time and lunch, Jay comes to get Mary and takes her to her friends. Then Jay goes and finds her own friends to hang out with.
“I leave Mary to do things on her own,” Jay said. “She likes to be independent, and she is independent. The only reason I have to take her to her friends is because the school is big and there are a lot of people, so it would be hard for her to do by herself. People think that just because Mary’s blind that she’s deaf or stupid or that she’s like Helen Keller. But if you talk to her, it’s obvious she’s not.”
After school, the girls come home, have a snack and do their homework together. Mary often asks Jay for help with math, and in return Mary will teach Jay some Braille.
When Kathleen gets boxes of apple juice for her daughters, she hands Jay one box and sets the other box down in front of Mary with enough force to make a sound so Mary knows where it is. Mary eats her salad with a fork, but uses her left hand to determine where the lettuce is and how much is left on her plate.
When Mary walks down the hall to her bedroom, she keeps one hand on the wall and follows it right to her door. She doesn’t count steps, though many blind people do. She uses her hands and her cane to feel where she’s going. Sometimes Vickie, who has had some training as a seeing eye dog, helps Mary on stairs.
“I like it when I’m walking with people and they tell me what’s around,” she said. “I like to know if we’re passing flowers or what the room looks like that we’re walking into. I like to know what’s coming up.”
‘Of course I would want to see if I could’
Mary said she doesn’t mind answering questions about being blind, but she does mind when the questions are ridiculous.
“Sometimes people ask me if I want to see, and if I wish I could see what my mom looks like or what I look like, and I think, ‘duh,'” Mary said. “Of course I would want to see if I could.”
Kids have also asked Mary if she can eat and sleep, Jay said, which both girls find frustrating. Other times, people will ask Jay questions about Mary when Mary is standing right there.
“It also makes me mad when we go places and people stare,” Jay added. “They’ve never seen a blind person or been around a blind person before, so they just stare. I try not to say anything, but a lot of times I stare right back.”
Kathleen said she believes a lot of these things – the ridiculous questions and the staring – can be avoided if more parents educated their children.
“If parents talked to their kids about not staring at people who are different or if they explained what it is to be blind, then I don’t think people like Mary would be such a mystery,” she said.
Understanding color
Aside from many misconceptions and people being nervous around her, Mary said one of the hardest things about being blind was understanding color. She makes up pictures of people in her head based on their voices. She knows how tall people are based on where the sound of their voices comes from. But colors are tricky.
“I know that apples are red, and brown is the color of tree bark, yellow is like bananas and green is the grass, and sometimes apples, too,” said Mary. “People have told me that Vickie is kind of orange and that her eyes look like she’s wearing eyeliner. That helps me make a picture in my head, but I know what Vickie looks like because I touch her, and I know her shape and how she feels.”
Above all, Mary and Jay stress that just because a person is blind doesn’t mean that person isn’t normal, and people who come into contact with Mary just need to make a few minor adjustments.
“When people walk with Mary, they look really stiff and uncomfortable, and they shuffle like a penguin,” Jay said. “All they have to do is hold out their arm so Mary can hold their elbow, and then they can walk normally.”
When people are talking in a large group, it’s important for them to address Mary by name when they want to talk to her, and it helps if they identify themselves, too.
“If people just say, ‘Hi, Mary, it’s so-and-so,’ and then they start talking, it helps a lot,” Mary said. “Otherwise, I’m not sure if they’re talking to me. I know people get nervous around me, but they really don’t have to be. I’m just like everyone else.”
