That's Life!

A few days after I had come out of hospital I had been sent to see Mr. Rivron, an 86 year old oculist, who had come out of retirement especially to help me out, as there were no other oculists left in Zimbabwe. He was a lovely old man who eventually found a brown eye – mine are blue – to pop into my very damaged eye socket. My sister and I thanked him profusely and then waited on the pavement outside for a lift. Well, that was a real insight into human behaviour – very interesting. I was not a very pretty sight but as Africans passed they put their faces right up to mine, staring at me for as long as they could. They would then say,

‘Oh sorry Madam, so sorry!’ or some such thing.


Europeans, on the other hand, had a quick glance and scurried by as fast as they could.


My sister and I really enjoyed ourselves deciding how people were going to react to my appearance and had a good laugh when they did react as we had grown to expect!


Kids are funny too.


Just after I’d had my artificial eye fitted I was sitting reading to my grandchildren when I realized that four year old Daniel was really staring at me.


‘Can you really take your eye out Granny?’ ‘Yes.’


‘Oh please take your eye out Granny, take your eye out, please.’


After much persuasion I did and then popped it in again.


‘Take your other eye out Granny. Go on. Please take your other eye out.’


I didn’t! But Daniel and the other grandkids enjoyed the humour of the situation and I think it helped them to cope with me looking so awful at the time.


One evening our whole family was gathered at my Mum’s house and we were discussing sleeping arrangements. It was decided that I would share rooms with my Mum – everyone called her Mum.


Andrea, aged five, looked at her very seriously and said,


‘Be very careful sleeping with my Granny. Her eye doesn’t close and she’ll stare at you all night long. That’s a bit spooky!’