They'll respect your cane!

I'm sending my blind nine year old daughter out into the world. And its quite enlightening. She has been using a cane during mobility class around school since she was 4, but that's usually only an hour a week. And she is completely proficient at correct cane technique. Now, its time for her to venture out.

My wife took her to a Northern Virginia mall the other day, red and white cane in hand, to familiarize herself with cane travel at the mall. Walking a few steps behind her, my wife watched as my daughter, barely four feet tall, attempted to correctly trail the right wall, which happens to have all of the store openings.

Merchants had their displays protruding out into the main walkway, and the mall stores design their entrances to be stylistic appealing, with different physical entrance designs for every single store. My daughter successfully navigated them, with a bit of frustration, which was expected.

But even worse than that, was that many people basically ignored her, plowing over her, and into her, and her red and white cane, as they rushed through the mall on their super important shopping errands. Now, picture a little 2nd grade Korean blind kid, slowly walking and carefully navigating her path on the right side of the walkway with her mom a few steps behind, and hustling, bustling adults coming toward her on the LEFT side of their walkway, the WRONG SIDE, packages in tow, talking on cell phones or listening to headphones, totally ignoring that SOMEONE ELSE NEEDS THEM TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT THEY ARE DOING!

After a couple of incidents, my wife stepped up and told our daughter, "Keep going, THEY'LL RESPECT THE CANE!"

We cannot insulate our daughter from people who are just rude and inconsiderate. But we can raise the awareness for people who just are too busy to notice that there are others in the world that depend on us to notice, that they need our help.

I ride mass transit every day and am always watching to see if someone else might NEED to use my seat. They won't ask. We have to NOTICE!

Be on the lookout for someone who might need your help today! It will make YOUR life more worthwhile, and less busy.