The Unseen Dream

As a child, my mother would read stories to me every night.

Stories of adventures and fairy tales, which speak of the kindness and light held within the human heart.

Her tales of princesses and unlikely heroes.

She told of the beauty which true love holds, and the power held within friendship.

Yet she did not shy away from the evil nature which also plagued the human heart.

Greed, loneliness, hatred, war, she spoke to me of death and departure, alongside many other things.

Sadly at the time I was but a child and I had trouble understanding why things happened the way they did in those stories.

Why do people need to hurt others?

Why do people need to steal?

Why?

Despite my lake of wisdom, my mother told me her stories in an attempt to pass on her own wisdom, that way when I grew up, just maybe I wouldn't be hurt by the world.

Despite her many tales, the stories my mother loved telling me the most were those of her own life.

Her family and the struggles she experienced growing up, despite having been born into a rather wealthy household.

Her attempts and fails in friendship and love, as well as her success in my father.

How they had first met and some of their doubts and feelings during that time.

She once told me a story though, that I still remember to this day.

I remember it every time I think of my name, Serenity.

A name meaning 'calm, peaceful and untroubled'.

She had told me that during her pregnancy with me, she often suffered from anxiety and panic attacks.

Her mind was almost constantly in a state of chaos and she almost never had a moment of serenity.

When I got older, I had always attributed her anxious heart to the fact that she almost lost my older brother during pregnancy due to complications and needed to have a 'c section' preformed.

One of the reasons I believed this was because In one of her later stories, she had told me that she originally didn't have the heart for a second child after my brother was born.

Whenever my father brought up my brother's case, my mother's thoughts would often jump to the worst case scenario. So he eventually stopped mentioning it.

Thus they had put off the thought of having another child, until my mother happened to get pregnant one night by accident.

She often told me that she believed it was fate that she got pregnant again despite her misgivings.

She believed that she was destined to have another child, and that child would become someone great. That, at least, was what she always told herself in an attempt to relieve her mind of negative thoughts.

Contrary to her thoughts though, she had a smooth pregnancy and just after I was born, my mother gave me the name Serenity in hopes I would be worry free and untroubled In life.

One of the reasons why this story of my origin impacted me so much, was because I can still sometimes feel the sensation of moist water on my cheek whenever I think back to the first time she told me that story as a little girl.

Sometimes I think that her lukewarm tears from that night, dripping down onto my face, resembled the same ones she most likely shed as she looked at my dead, unfocused eyes for the first time after I was born.

That beautiful and ever imaginative mind which was constantly plagued with worry, had finally experienced a moment of Serenity the moment her daughter was born. As she no longer had to worry about complications during pregnancy.

Only to have her serenity ripped from her, by the very daughter she blessed with that name.

Knowing what I did to her by being born I often find blame in myself. At the very least, it helps me sleep at night.

Finding out her daughter was blind came as no small shock to my mother.

As a child, what I remember most from my mother aside from my her stories, were her tears.

Late at night when I went to the bathroom I could often hear he sobs. If it wasn't that, it was hearing her and my father talk of their worries in regards to her mental condition.

It seems despite her attempts to hid her sufferings, my father knew his life long love best. He constantly had to worry about not only his daughter's condition, but also his wife's.

Regardless of whether her attempts to hide her mental state were successful or not, when we were together, all she wanted to show to her kids was her strong side.

She wanted to lead by example and be that figure she thought I needed to make it though any hard times that might follow.

Hard times did indeed follow.

Even without her being born blind, what her parents seemed to fear the most was their daughters future and the hardships she would face in her life, both external and internal.

That was the whole reason in which they had given her the name 'Serenity'. It was in hope that she would be able to over come all obstacles with a serene heart and mind.

Her early years growing up were rough on both them and herself. Raising a blind daughter was completely different from what they had experienced with my brother.

Despite the early hardships, whether it was in an attempt to ease the worries of her parents, her mother especially, or due to the stories her mother often told her, she grew up quite fast when compared to other children.

Making sure not to disappoint their hopes or expectations when they named her, she was akin to a fairy since the time she could think for herself.

She was constantly smiling and seemingly without worry.

As time passed and she grew older it didn't take long for her character of a strong and brave young girl, despite her handicap, to take the forefront of her persona.

Due to the fact that she was always smiling and cheerful, her parents sometimes would even forget that she possesses this handicap.

Though this was largely due to the fact that her other senses seemed to have made up for her lack of sight and helped her get through her daily life like an ordinary person.

On top of that her sharp memory made it possible for her to remember details after studying them once or twice, making things a lot easier on her.

One such time was when she first started going to public school.

She needed to memorize the route to and from school, otherwise her parents wouldn't let her attend and would instead hire a teacher to home school her.

It didn't take long for her to memorize the route though, as her brother would walk along side her describing things in the surroundings, while she used her support cane to feel things ahead of her.

Therefore after a few days, within her head was a realistic, yet dull, picture of her surroundings based on her past experience walking around the house as well as her own imagination.

Aside from certain things which required sight, she was able to accomplish anything anyone else could.

Her and her older brother would often even play catch in the backyard. With her sense of hearing allowing her to hone in on the ball cutting through the air.

All of this made her parents relieved and proud of their daughter and she was eventually able to ward off her parents heartache and pain over her disability, replacing it with joy and laughter which often resounded throughout the house…

However, beneath that smile of hers was anguish…

Suppressed deep within her heart, beneath the mask she wore to keep her parents happy, she was very depressed.

She had trouble making friends in and out of school.

The school she attended was loud and unforgiving. Voices and clatter filled the halls and it felt like everywhere she went her ears were ringing.

This led to her often wanting to tune out some things and rely on her support cane to get through the halls or a teacher to escort her, however, she had already tried that before.

Due to her not using her support cane most of the time while at school, and taking the same path every day to get to her classes she was pretty good at navigating the halls through memory alone.

These things alongside her hearing, assisted her in avoiding bumping into the other kids.

Though sometimes the kids wouldn't 'avoid' her.

At one point she didn't care about hitting anyone anymore and used her support cane as a ward to prevent people from bumping into her.

Yet despite the fact that the amount of times she was bumped into lessened, something worse then the physical pain started.

It was then that the kids no longer suppressed their whispers.

At the time she had assumed that because they could no longer easily hurt her physically, they sought a new way to hurt her.

Every time she walked down the halls from then on, she would hear the other kids talking about her behind her back. Largely because they intended for her to hear.

So she decided to ask for one of the support teachers for help walking to class, using the excuse that she wasn't feeling to well that day.

She had thought that the teachers presence would protect her from their whispers.

Yet she was wrong...

The bullying only began to escalate as they looked at her like she was an animal at the zoo.

Although she couldn't 'see' the looks they gave her, due to the hateful comments she was subjected to every day she eventually became paranoid.

As a kid, she had remembered that her parents sometimes would ask people not to 'stare' at her. For a while she wasn't able to distinguish the difference between a 'stare' or 'looking' at something.

After all didn't people with sight 'look' at things?

It wasn't until she started school that she finally understood, and she began to associate the whispers and talking, with stares.

While associating the gentle and loving tone her family spoke to her in, or those people who would ask questions without malicious intent such as 'Does she need help?', as looking.

Despite her attempts to make friends at school, with the constant whispers and bullying it didn't take long for her to feel estranged, and alienated.

Yet it wasn't only at school that she had problems fitting in.

She had become sensitive to other people talking about her, learning to better distinguish between curiosity and belittlement.

Whenever she went out whether it was with her family, or her alone, she often heard similar whispers to the ones she received at school so in time she associated them too with staring.

Eventually she stopped going out alone all together.

She would still go out with her families so as to not worry them, however, she didn't bring her support cane with her and instead would just hold onto one of their arms so that people were less inclined to notice her handicap and talk about her.

One of the main reason she did that was because she knew that her family would be more hurt by it then she would be as she was already used to the actions of others by that point.

She would often contemplated about getting homeschool like her parents had initially suggested, or just dropping out of school entirely, but she knew her parents would worry if she did that.

Over the years of telling them lies so as to not worry them, they had come to believe that she was popular at school and had friends.

She used the excuse that kids her age would talk to one another on their phones rather then hang out, so they wouldn't ask why she never left the house aside from going to school.

Even her brother who was the closest person to her and her number one confident, had already graduated the year she entered high school so he didn't know of her troubles.

Although he did check up on her through the teachers to ensure she wasn't getting bullied, the teachers were just as clueless, so all they had were good things to say.

Besides she knew from her experience with the hallway incident that seeking them out for protection only made things worse for her so she had never brought up her troubles to them.

Still she loved her brother dearly for all the trouble he went through to ensure her safety.

She knows how much he does for her and how much he cares about her safety and happiness.

The late nights he would stay up and help her study even though he had work in the morning.

The times he took her out shopping in a quiet boutique store or to a park with a sparse amount of people just so she would be able to get away from everything for a change, even though he was probably exhausted.

The lectures and seminars he took in college related to blindness so he could understand her better.

She couldn't ask for a better brother nor would she trade him for the world.

Her family in her opinion are the only people who don't expect any less from her due to her disability. They know she can achieve greatness and supported her wholeheartedly.

Her father was similar to her brother in the caring aspect, its just that he struggled with understanding her sometimes.

His job brought him traveling around the world and he would often bring her and the rest of the family on trips with him to 'experience new things'.

She knew he was just trying to bring her joy so she could never tell him her fears.

The truth was she was scared...she would often cry herself to sleep when she was in a strange and different place.

Even though she tried to stop herself, she just couldn't help it.

She felt vulnerable, like she can't defend herself should something happen.

She had memorized everything in her house from a young age so if someone broke in or there was an emergency she would be able to handle it.

Yet in a strange and unfamiliar environment she felt weak and alone.

She often worries about her future, much like her parents in the past.

What happens after high school? Can she deal with even more hardships that would come with going to college?

What about getting a job? Who would hire her? She had read the studies and knew that most employers would rather hire a seeing yet lackluster employee, rather then a blind and capable one.

What about her life after college should she decide to go? Marriage? Could she find someone to be her partner?

Who would be able to look past my sight and see me for who I am?

These questions often plagued her thoughts at night before bed.

Despite her worries, time always seems to find its way forward.

It was now the first day of summer break before her eleventh year of high school.

The summer after her sixteenth birthday.