by Emma
feeding bowls, which was too late for anything to be done.
One particular evening, however, I saw Ming come away
from her supper, having left a little meat in the bowl as usual,
and then I saw Emma, full of stealth, do a slow-motion walk
towards the bowl. She was just about to put her great brown
nose into it ' when I shouted at her, 'Emma, leave it!'
It was as if someone had fired a shot-gun behind her. She
spun round, and looked at me with an expression I had never
seen before: amazement, shock perhaps, even a Iiint that she
I
I
igo EMMA AND I
had encountered the supernatural. 'Yes,' I said, 'I can see.
You were going to finish that off, weren't you?' She came
over to me, and pushed her nose into my hand, and wagged
her tail rather tentatively, as if she ,vished to say: 'Well,
what's all this about? I don't understand this at all.'
But I think she did understand, and knew from then on that
I could see. After that, when she went on the lead, she started
to pull, to bark at other dogs, and stop and sniffat lamp posts:
things that the correct, dignified, working Emma would never
have dreamt of doing. But now she did not have to work,
nor, because she was eleven, was there any question of her
being anyone else's guide-dog. She had earned her freedom.
When off the lead, she is a joy to watch, running along with
her nose to the ground, stopping to investigate every tree and
blade of grass, her tail waving high in the air. There were
aspects of Emma I had never known about. How, for instance,
her cars seemed to jump up and down as she ran. I love her
energy and zest for life, and she seems to share myjoy in being
able to see her.
There were other things that also became clear to me as
time went on. One thing, though I have never yet seen, and
that is a rainbow. Don once rushed in to me in a storm when
the sun was shining, and said, 'Come on, Sheila, come and
look.' He was so excited. But by the time I was outside the
sky had changed; everything had faded but for a faint bar of
violet over the ground where the rainbow had been. He was
immensely disappointed, and so was I. I am still waiting to
catch a rainbow.
And, rainbow apart, at last I have now seen what Christmas
is really like. Previously I had always felt sad at Christmas and
frustrated because I knew the town would be decorated, with
lights and Christmas trees and an enormous illuminated
picture of Santa Claus, which I used to miss seeing most of all.
And in the shops there would be a host of things that my
mother would describe, but which I could never enjoy through
window shopping. I could put out a hand and touch them, of
course, but it was not the same. However (Don used to think
A NEW LIFE
igi
it strange), I had always put up decorations at home. I would
have my own impressions, knowing precisely where everything
was, so that I could imagine the scene. I used to sit down,
loving the idea that the house was properly decorated, and
that I had done it. All those years of decorating for myself,
and going shopping without being able to see what presents
I was buying, dropped away as if they had never been. Being
able to see and enjoy Christmas to the full, more than anything
else, summed up what sight meant to me.
I bought more decorations than I had ever done before,
and added them to the ones I already had. I also bought an
enormous Christmas tree, and I hung tinsel everywhere. Don
came home with some fairy-lights, and when we switched
them on, blue, orange, green, it was like being six again, only
better. And the pleasure I had from writing my own Christmas
cards, and from being able to know as soon as I opened the
envelope who had sent us cards, was indescribable. On
Christmas Day itself it was pure joy to watch Don open each
present. Whether it was a shirt, or after-shave, I had chosen
it myself.
Now another year has gone by, a year in which I have
gradually become more used to, more practised in, what I can
do with vision. But I have not, to this day, lost my sense of
wonder. When I hear people in the street complaining about
the price of potatoes or coal going up again, I want to remind
them just how lucky they are simply to be able to see the sky
and the clouds.
But Don and I think ourselves particularly lucky. Last
Christmas brought an addition to the family. On 2 I December
I had a baby daughter, Kerensa Emma Louise, who is now
ten weeks old. (The middle name was chosen, of course, for
a very good chocolate-brown reason.) We have been blessed
wi a very eau I u a y. on an ave appiness eyon
all our dreams, and but one prayer left to be answered: that
Kerensa will be able to see.
I