You're Not Alone | ✓

Chapter 1

My alarm clock sounds. I rub my eyes and turn off my alarm. I swing my legs out of the bed and feel for Louie, my guide dog and her harness.

Danielle Francisco, 19, was born blind, but my story is bigger and brighter than that. I have been blind since birth, so I am used to being blind.

I was born with very big problem with my eyes. There are lots of reasons why someone might be blind or have poor eyesight. It could be a problem in the eye, which has lots of different parts. But in my cases, it is because of injuries which occur during childbirth. Although this is very rare, it is possible that an injury during childbirth may cause blindness. Or it could be a problem with the way the messages get from the eye to the brain, which tells you what you're seeing. Is it an apple or an alligator?

My parents took me to see many doctors to learn what was wrong and to see what they could do to fix the problem. My first surgery was when I was 10 days old. Other surgeries followed, but it was a long while before anything changed for me.

Because I couldn't see, it was taking longer for me to do the stuff most babies and toddlers do like crawl around and learn to stand up. And my parents couldn't teach me in the same ways that other babies learn like showing her a book and saying 'book'. Everything was harder for me.

As I sit in the doorways, impassive in my eternal darkness, remain as calm as ever in the midst of this fresh gaiety. And not understanding what is taking place around me.

I head back inside, Louie help me getting into the kitchen. I smell something delicious. I can hear my Sam humming to her all time favorite song with the sounds of water running in the sink in the background. I can tell that she is making my favorite food, mushrooms soup.

"Oh Sammy, it smells appetizing", I said as I sat on a tall stool by the kitchen island. I rest my arms on the cold marble kitchen island.

Sam was hired by my dad few months ago. She is my maid. That's what my dad called her. But what he doesn't know is that she actually feels like my best friend.

People hate me because of my disability. They say I'm weird and disgusting. There's also times people treated me as a beggar who is eating the bread of strangers. At every meal the very food my swallowed was made a subject of reproach against me

I was called a drone, a clown, and although my family had taken possession of this but nothing changes.

"Well mushroom soup will always make your day even better", She replied. She placed a spoon in the palm of my hand. I put the spoon in the bowl and ready to eat.

As soon as I finished my soup I went and sat outside the door in summer and in winter beside the fireside, and did not stir again all the morning.

I made no gesture, no movement. Only my eyelids, quivering from some nervous affection, fell down sometimes over my white, sightless orbs.

For some years things went on in this fashion. But my incapacity for work as well as my impassiveness eventually make me became a laughingstock, a sort of butt for merriment, a prey to the inborn ferocity, to the savage gaiety of the brutes who surrounded me.

It is easy to imagine all the cruel practical jokes inspired by my blindness. I may be blind but I'm still a human being. I have feelings. I can't see things, but I know what sad and happy are. I can cry. People make big fuss when I cried. "Oh look, she can cry!" or  "Holy shit, is that tears are real?"

Let me tell you, I'm just blind that doesn't mean I can't cry.

"Danny, you should take a shower now before you dad arrives. I already put your clothes to wear later on your bed.", Sammy said politely tapping my shoulder.