eye exam
The first time we walked into the eye doctor’s office, the top of Adam’s head came up to my waist. I remember the feel of his baby hand, the way his soft, stubby fingers tried in vain to reach my own. I gripped his wrist to be sure he wouldn’t wander. At the time, the waiting room looked like a wonderland, especially to someone small, with trees growing out of the walls, a pint-sized bakery built into an alcove, complete with a red-striped awning, plastic donuts, rubbery triangles of pretend pie. I remember shelves of books, child-sized chairs, and reading nooks. Dress-up clothes hung crooked on little hangers in a corner of the room. It all seemed so welcoming, so fun, so eager to set children at ease. This place is for you! The room cheerfully announced. It looked fresh and glossy, like a whole new world. All the waiting parents looked out of place, too big for the chairs, too serene, too, well, stressed.
Nearly fifteen years later, time and use and even the pandemic have left that room a shadow of what it once was. Trees still grow out of the waiting room walls, but the paint has faded and chipped and peeled, and the formed trunks look a little dented and tired. The books are gone, as are the dress-up clothes and the plastic baked goods. Instead of the red-striped awning, I see only a blank wall and a child-sized six-paned door leading to emptiness. Without touching the knob, I know that door doesn’t open anymore, and through the window I can see that the little room is bare anyway. The child-sized chairs have been replaced by bigger ones, which is good for Adam, since now I look up into his gentle eyes, reaching to sweep his hair aside. The pediatric ophthalmologist has gone gray, as I have begun to do. He waves at me from an office behind the front desk and then gently closes the door.
Adam and I check in and sit down in the waiting room, which now feels like a place in transition, bereft of imagination, worn and growing older. For me though, the real wonder here has always been the doctor more than anything else, and from the desk I could still see the sharp, cool, efficient signs of his steady influence, no matter how things look in the liminal spaces.
I remember wondering that first time how the doctor would ever know how clearly Adam could see, nevermind how well Adam’s eyes were holding up to the rigors of diabetes. Adam, who was nearly silent then, fearfully resisted examinations of any kind. He thrashed and cried and screamed. He didn’t understand the most basic instructions well enough to comply, even if he could have calmed down enough to do so. And in new places, Adam felt anxiety he could not name about everything unpredictable and unknown. To say that Adam flew into “fight mode” was putting it mildly, so I couldn’t be sure then that Adam would sit in the chair, much less remain still enough for the doctor to make an assessment. Back then, I believed Adam to be uniquely difficult, but now I know that every one of us, at least some of the time, is impossible to reach.
I had protested then, naming my concerns, only to be reassured that this doctor knew what to do and the visit would be worth it. I remember nervously staring, wide-eyed, at the bends and curves of those tree trunks growing out of the walls, those realistic silk leaves, while Adam grabbed a book. He walked up to that tiny bakery door, oblivious to the crowd of kids weaving in and out and around each other with pretend pastries gripped in their fists. Obstinately, he stood and held the book on the opposite side of that door, and ever-so-slowly, centimeter-by-centimeter, slid the pictures into view. Adam hardly knew how to play, much less pretend.
I pat his knee now, and he looks up from the tablet in his hands and grins. He’s not a little boy anymore, but here we sit, even with his wide shoulders and the young-man angles of his face, the patch of grizzle he always forgets to shave making a black shadow below his chin. I see everything I need to see in Adam’s eyes: he’s happy today, and at peace, presently feeling no particular deficit or worry. This place is familiar now, and the doctor doesn’t require anything Adam can’t give. The doctor has ways, I discovered those many years ago, to get Adam to turn his head, ways to get Adam to look, to see. The doctor has ways to measure the perception of Adam’s eyes even when Adam can’t describe those perceptions himself, and that’s good, because Adam’s responses can be unreliable. Adam doesn’t know how to differentiate, especially in words, between finer points of strength and weakness, but then, as I get older, I realize I’m not so skilled that way either.
A nurse comes to summon Adam, who piles his important things in the chair beside me–his tablet (with a charger!), his watch (the strap broken now and waiting for replacement), the bag where he keeps his diabetic supplies–and quietly follows her into an exam room. I give thanks, I always do in moments like these; I haven’t lost the shadowy memory of Adam’s fear.
“Ow ow ow,” I hear Adam say, his voice throaty and deep, this tone much more incredulous and affronted than the soft Southern bye he offered when we left home and Riley stood at the door and waved. They’ve put the drops in his eyes, and this will be the extent of his protest, just a reminder that he finds that part unpleasant. By the time we leave, all of the nurses at the front will look at him tenderly and lift their hands to wave. They will have remembered love; Adam has a way of making us remember.
I give thanks for that too, as I sit alone in the faded waiting room, as I watch another mother with a much, much younger son try to sign forms at the desk while her son pushes her shirt up and swings around her waist. I want to tell her that one day he will hold her hand and his fingers will fit between her own. I want to tell her not to worry if her son doesn’t know what to say or how to be still. I want to tell her how much it comforts me now to know that even I don’t have to know what to do, that when I’m blind and I don’t really understand, God knows the way to teach me to look, to see. I want to tell her that I remember this every time we come to see the doctor. But all that feels like too many words just now, as she repositions her purse on her shoulder and grips her son’s baby wrist, a sippy cup wedged carefully under her arm. So as she walks in the room and looks up at those old, dented papier-mâché trees, I just smile and say hello.
