Three Tips on Assisting a Blind Person

In the twenty years I’ve lived in total darkness, I’ve experienced life in the cities and villages of three West African countries (Mali, Ivory Coast and my mission home—Guinea), several European countries (Primarily Switzerland, but also Germany, France and Holland), spent time on a moshave in Israel near Jerusalem, and even co-led a commando-style mission to help Christians in a fishing village in India right after the tsunami of 2004. I noticed in each spot on the globe people rushed to assist me, but seldom knew what to do.

I am truly touched by the compassion of these helping hands, but sometimes their assistance can produce more stress than help. I believe that if folks know what it is that a blind person may need, everyone will be blessed by their assistance. Naturally, there are as many tips as there are visually challenged people, but I’m going to share three that top my list.

Tip One: ASK how you may help before acting on your assumptions.

Keep in mind, I am totally blind and don’t see you coming until you pull at my arm or push down on my shoulders. That startles me in a small group of voices I can recognize, but can be quite frightening in a room full of strangers.

When offering me a beverage, it will help us both if you stand out of my arms reach and announce the beverage. Something like: “Would you like a glass of iced tea? I have one right here.”

Don’t move until you see my hand reach up; otherwise, our hands may collide, toppling the contents onto that cream-colored carpet you’ve just installed.

Tip Two: The key to DIRECTIONAL ASSISTANCE is touch—mine, not yours.

When a sighted person enters a room, he looks for an empty chair. Finding one, he’ll turn around and sit down, sometimes even speaking to the person seated next to him as he does. Because this is totally natural for the sighted person, the assumption may be made that I only need to be led to a place not yet occupied.

Yes, the first step is being directed to an empty chair or spot on a sofa, but if you leave me there without further instructions, I may very well sit on the lap of someone who’s slipped in before I stepped close enough to sit. (This only happened once before I learned not to let the kind hostess free of my arm too soon.)

The more common embarrassment is to have the guide suddenly take hold of my shoulders or hips and turn me around like a rag doll. “You can sit here,” the guide says while pushing my body against the furniture. As you might have imagined, this leads to a freefall plop, producing a startled, “Oomph!”

Whenever you want to give directional assistance— to an empty spot on the furniture or into a car seat—remember that I need to find my bearings to be seated safely. I do appreciate the extra effort and time you take to help me.

Picture yourself afloat in the middle of the ocean. You long for some sighting of land to get an idea of your location. For those of you not keen on ocean voyages, how about those long, lonely drives across the interstate highway of Northern Montana? Doesn’t it feel great to finally see a road sign letting you know the name of the hamlet ahead? That’s exactly how I feel in my ocean of darkness; I need something to latch onto to figure out where to go next.

If you’re directing me to a place on the sofa, it’s a great help if you’ll put my hand on the armrest or back of the furniture. I’ll take a few seconds to find the seat cushion, so I know if I should sit to the left or right of the armrest, but that’ll do it; you need not help the rest of my body to assume the sitting position. (Yes, this goes for putting my hand on the back of a wooden chair, especially if I’ve been lead to the chair from the side and not the front.)

I’m fine getting out of any car, but getting into an unfamiliar vehicle will need a bit more time than being seated on the sofa. Having quite a collection of Grade AA Jumbo-sized bumps to my head and more blackened eyes than I’d like to remember, I urge you to let me register an accurate picture of the exact space my body has to maneuver through to reach the passenger seat.

Once the door has been opened, I reach out to feel the entire area before me. I feel for the distance between the back of the front seat/dashboard and the seat I’ll be sitting on, the height of the seat and the distance to the top opening of the vehicle. I’ll also check for those pesky handholds that bop me in the head if I’m not aware they’re there.

Seeing my short stature, you may be concerned that I’ll have trouble getting into your van or vehicle that sits rather high off the ground; don’t worry. We have a fairly high step up to the front seat of our Toyota Prado in Guinea. I’m used to hoisting just half of my backside onto the seat, grabbing the handhold and pushing myself onto the seat. No need to do what one dear middle-aged missionary man did, placing the flat of his palms under the hanging half and thrusting upward until I nearly flew out the opposite open door. Trust me; I can do it, if you’ll give me a few minutes to figure things out. (Refer back to Tip One here.)

Tip Three: CONVERSATIONS in a group setting can be challenging for the blind person.

I’m naturally a people-person, and love interacting with people of all ages—from birth to Methuselah. One of the most painful aspects to blindness has been my difficulty with conversations in group settings.

Unless the person actually says my name, I can’t be sure she’s addressing her comments to me and not someone nearby. Sometimes in the beginning, I mistakenly answered questions not asked of me, only to receive an abrupt, “I didn’t ask you.”

At other times, the person had recited quite a story for me, but I had no idea he had been speaking to me, until the comment, “Did you lose your hearing, too?”

I’ve learned to politely interrupt the speaker, if I’m not near someone who can respond to the question quietly: “Is someone speaking to me?” It’s as uncomfortable to be told “no” as it is to have the person think I’m ignoring him intentionally, caring nothing about his story.

I’ll appreciate it a lot if you’ll use my name in the conversation at some point, if not at the very beginning. That’ll give me a hint that I should be prepared to offer a response.

Another really painful challenge is knowing if the person I’ve been talking with has left our space. Many times I’ve begun responding to the speaker’s comments, only to have my colleague slip over with a “you’re talking to yourself. The person has left.” Can I tell you honestly? That still brings tears to my eyes after twenty years.

Please, even if it’s just in your conversation, give me a clue you’re leaving. Something like, “Oh, I see so-and-so,” or “See you later.” I’ll be so thankful that I’ll look forward to your group’s next Christmas party.

One of my Braille instructors encouraged us to make an effort to smile when people are around. Usually, we smile in response to something we see, right? So, if we can’t see, then we need to conscientiously put on that smile in the presence of others. I must have looked like an old prune before learning this.

I mention this to you, because you may come across me in the aisle of a grocery store, smiling like a Cheshire cat. No, I haven’t lost my marbles along with my eyesight; I’m just practicing my public demeanor—while concentrating to remember just which aisle has the Mexican foods.

On the other hand, if you see me frowning like I just lost my best friend and the world’s a miserable place, don’t worry. I’ve probably just forgotten to smile for the strain of trying to remember what item’s missing from the cart. Feel free to pop over and whisper, “Smile.”

I hope these few tips have served to explain just a few of the challenges a totally blind person has in this sighted world. I appreciate your helping hand. It says that you aren’t afraid to approach me; that means everything to a blind person.

If you have any questions after reading these two posts, I welcome the chance to address them—either in your comments or by email (dannie.hawley@gmail.com)  .