A Valuable, but Unusable Gift

It’s four thirty on a Sunday morning. I’m awakened from a sound sleep, and I’m not sure why. I don’t need to be awake for a couple more hours, but, since I am quite awake, I reach over to pick up my cell phone on the night table.

The notifications pop up on the screen. I notice that I’ve missed a call at 3:30 AM. Who’s calling me at 3:30 am?

I tap in to the message. “Rusty, my name is Sarah. You don’t know me, but I’m from your church. I’m calling you because of an urgent situation. My daughter died about eight hours ago. We’re donating her corneas and I thought of you.”

I was stunned. By this time my wife was awake and I said, “I need to make a call.”

I explained the situation.

“I know her.” She said. “She has the cute little girl who runs around during church; she doesn’t have a shy bone in her body.”

We were both shaken.

The bottom line is that I could not use the gift I was so generously being offered because I have retinitis pigmentosa. I needed to inform mom. I left a message and laid back down. But thoughts of the little one and her sweet and thoughtful mother made our sleep restless until we needed to get up for real.

This event brings up a complicated cocktail of thoughts. Besides being saddened by the loss of life and potential, I was honored and blessed by the thought that this grieving mother offered me the gift of sight. In her loss, she was prepared to give me such a valuable gift. I also felt sad in a way that I had to turn it down, but hopeful that someone else might benefit. The next morning I called to explain why, and to thank mom and offer our condolences.

It makes me think about the idea that blindness and eye conditions are misunderstood. So many times as “disabled” folks we are offered kindnesses by well meaning people who are not really aware of what we need, if anything.

Have you or someone you know been offered a gift, a service, some kindness that you don’t need, or maybe can’t even use?

Share your thoughts.