A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my trip to Flava Village and the subtle ways disabled adults are sometimes treated like children. At an event where alcohol flowed freely, none was offered to guests who were, for all intents and purposes, VIPs.
It was a small thing, but it raised a bigger question about how society sees people with disabilities, what assumptions are made about us, often without a second thought.
Last weekend, I had another reminder.
For context, I am a blind woman. I have been blind from birth, which means this is simply my normal. I work at the Trinidad and Tobago Blind Welfare Association. I attended the school for blind children in Santa Cruz. Many of my closest friends are blind or visually impaired, and my boyfriend, whom I’ve known for more than 20 years, is also blind. I even play goalball.
In other words, I am not unfamiliar with blindness. I live it fully, every day. I don’t see any of these simple things as extraordinary or impressive. For me, and for most people in the blind and visually impaired community, it is just our lives.
Last Sunday afternoon, a group of friends and I were sitting outside Certified Scoops in South Park after getting ice cream. Some of us are blind, some have low vision, and all of us were doing something fairly ordinary: hanging out, talking, enjoying the afternoon.
A woman approached us. I’m sure she meant well, but she began by speaking to the man who had driven us there rather than to the group sitting in front of her.
Apparently, blindness also makes us invisible.
She told him she had seen us inside the shop and that it had moved her. She spoke about her desire to see healing and restoration in the world, even mentioning something as simple as the common cold as the kind of healing she loves to witness.
Meanwhile, our driver, who is also our friend, explained that we had just come from a goalball demonstration, had gone out for lunch, and were now relaxing with ice cream.
You know. Like people do on a regular Sunday afternoon.
She then asked if she could pray for us.
She asked whether we were believers. Three of my friends said they were Christian. Another said she believes in God but does not attend church.
Then she turned to me.
“Are you Christian?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” I said.
Because I’m not. I’m a devoted Hindu.
She asked if she could still pray, which was perfectly fine with me. Prayer, after all, is prayer. Whether it is spoken in Arabic, Hindi, Tamil, Hebrew, or in the African tongues of those who follow the Orisha faith, people have always reached out to the divine in their own way.
That part was not the issue.
Instead of simply offering the prayer she had asked about, however, she kept urging me to accept Christ into my heart, assuring me she could guide me through it, right there on the spot.
I declined.
Politely. Clearly. Repeatedly.
During all this, she also kept calling me “Sister Sherryn.”
My name is Shannon.
She did eventually correct herself, though even in the prayer she stumbled: “The believers here, and Sister Sherryn … Shannon.”
Individually, these things might seem small. A misdirected conversation. A mispronounced name. A well-meaning prayer that goes a little too far.
But together, they point to something larger.
There is a tendency to see people with physical disabilities not as whole individuals, but as problems to be solved or lives to be improved, spiritually, physically, or otherwise. It is an outlook that often comes wrapped in kindness, but still carries an assumption that something about us is lacking.
That assumption shows up in different ways. Sometimes it is deciding what we should or should not be offered. Sometimes it is speaking to the person next to us instead of to us. And sometimes, it is believing that what we really need is to be changed.
To be clear, I have nothing against Christianity. I have nothing against prayer. Friends and family of mine belong to many different faiths. Respecting people’s beliefs has never been difficult for me.
Respecting a simple “no,” however, seems to be harder for some.
Blindness is not a tragedy waiting for a cure, nor is it a spiritual deficit in need of correction. It is simply my life. It is the life that allows me to work, to maintain relationships, to play goalball, to lime with friends, and to sit outside an ice-cream shop on a sunny afternoon.
It is a full life. Not a placeholder for something better.
And while I will never fault someone for wanting to pray, I will gently suggest this: before trying to change someone’s life, take a moment to see it as it already is.
You might find that it does not need fixing.
Still, if someone is going to pray for my soul, the least they can do is get my name right.
It’s Shannon.
This column is supplied in conjunction with the T&T Blind Welfare Association
Headquarters: 118 Duke Street, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
Email: ttbwa1914@gmail.com
Phone: (868) 624-4675
WhatsApp: (868) 395-3086
