Originally I had resisted going to the weekly meetings my friend Jan had suggested that I should try to attend. I certainly was not looking to “hook up” with anyone as I was still reeling from the shock of losing my husband of almost 40 years from a rather fast acting case of pancreatic cancer. From the time Mike was diagnosed until the day he died we only had 6 months to settle our affairs, and the last 3 months of his life absolutely drained me as I watched this once strong and proud man wither away to a shadow of his former self. When the end came and he slipped away, finally free of the pain that had wracked his body for the past 6 months I felt relief that he had died, but the tears still streamed down my cheeks as the realization came to me that I was now a widow. “Adults without Partners” was the name of the group that Jan had suggested I should give it a try to attend their meetings. One of her other friends had been going to these meetings for about a year since the death of her husband, and although I didn’t know Lucy I accepted that she had probably been helped by the group. I just wasn’t ready, and I felt I had my own support group as our 3 children and 2 grandkids were helping me keep busy and keep my mind off the loss of Mike. But gradually I began to realize that the kids had their own lives to live and I was going to have to develop some interests in my life that did not involve them. Finally I decided I would take Jan’s advice and on a Tuesday evening about 3 months after Mike’s funeral I took a cab to the meeting place. It was actually the kind of group I felt comfortable with. It was held in the church hall of the local United Church, but it was inter denominational, as anyone who had lost a partner could come. There were no fees, although donations were accepted to pay for the coffee and cookies that were offered. Nothing was said about religion and no prayers were part of the evening. I felt rather good about having taken this first step to rebuild my life. Sure, I looked around to see if there were any guys that maybe interested me. Most of them were all right in the appearance category. One guy I talked with was rather tall and lanky, but was pretty homely and seemed a bit socially awkward so I passed on him as having any potential. And another chap was a little shorter than my 5’6”, rather portly and had attempted to do that thing with his hair where they comb it across from one side to the other so that people won’t see that they are bald. Major fail there and I wasn’t at all interested in him. I did spot one fellow that might have interested me, but he appeared oblivious to my presence. And, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t there with the intentions of meeting a man. It was just nice to be in the presence of mixed company again although there was a few more widows than widower’s there. But that is pretty normal because women generally outlive the men. I went back for the second week and it was an even better experience. Some of the other ladies were friendlier than they had been the week before, and I suppose that is natural because after all, why spend the time to get to know someone unless you know they will be back in your life again. A few of us played bid euchre and others just sat at the tables and had coffee while they chatted. I spotted the gentleman who had seemed oblivious to my presence the week before and I could tell from his attitude that there was no more interest in him attempting to get to know me than there had been last week. I missed the following week’s gathering. My vanity kicked in and I just couldn’t bring myself to face the group with my bespectacled visage. My contact lenses had been acting up - probably due to all the crying I had done since Mike had gotten sick. It was more likely that without having Mike around I had been a little careless in taking some of the proper steps that had kept me comfortable in contacts since I had turned 16 and had first gotten those awful old hard lenses. I don’t know what I did wrong, but after a visit to my eye doctor I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to wear contacts until my eye problems cleared up – possibly for as long as 30 days and I was having a hard time bringing myself to face the world in glasses. I hate the term blind as a bat. I suppose bats are blind, but they only come out at night and they have some sort of a radar guidance system that is far superior to any form of eyesight. Me, I’m just blind without my glasses and I have no other guidance system other than glasses or contact lenses. I suppose my parents had been a little disappointed when it was found, at the age of 4, that I had inherited my dad’s myopia. While dad had been quite nearsighted, with a prescription somewhere around -15D for most of his life, I had initially started off with a prescription of -13D in my first glasses. And it only went up from there, as I already wore myodisc lenses in a prescription of -20D when I was age 16 and got my first pair of contact lenses. By the time my myopic progression came to a halt in my mid 20’s I was looking at the world through a pair of contact lenses that were -20D. Because of the distance between my corneas and the lenses in a pair of glasses my glasses now had to be around -26D to give me close to 20/30 visual acuity with glasses, which was pretty good for someone with such a high prescription according to my eye doctor. Over the years I had adapted quite well to my very minimal uncorrected vision. I always managed to interpret the blur well enough to make my way from the bed to the bathroom in the morning to put in my contacts. And I could make my way back to bed in the early evening to get my glasses from the bedside table drawer where my glasses were kept. I don’t know why I just didn’t put my glasses on when I woke up and then leave them in the bathroom, but I suppose that some part of me wanted to show myself that I wasn’t as blind as I really was. I did always take my contacts out shortly after supper, and I wore my glasses all evening when we were at home. And when Mike was sick, I was home with him all the time so I wore my glasses a lot more than I ever had during my teaching career. But I still had such a very strong reluctance to wearing my glasses that I would never allow myself to walk out the front door wearing glasses. I visited my eye doctor weekly so he could check to see how my eyes were recovering. The first visit was because of my red eyes on a Thursday, a couple of days past the second meeting I had attended and that was when I heard the dreaded news that I was going to have to wear my glasses for a while. The following Thursday, after I had missed that Tuesday meeting, I went back again and was told that I was going to have to wear my glasses for at least the 30 days he had initially suggested and maybe even longer. I was devastated at the thought that I would not be able to attend any meetings for about 3 more weeks because I had just started to get to know some of the people. When I was telling Jan about my glasses troubles she suggested that it really shouldn’t matter if I wore my glasses. Jan just didn’t understand. She had worn glasses for years, and didn’t seem to be at all inclined to bother with contact lenses. She claimed to be blind without her glasses, but her prescription was only a paltry -6.00D and I suppose that while she considered herself to be helpless without her glasses she had nothing on me for being blind without correction. Finally after Jan encouraging me by telling me that I looked quite good wearing my glasses I decided that since no one really knew me at these gatherings it should not matter to anyone if I wore glasses or not. I did experience a feeling of trepidation as I walked in the door of the church hall. A number of people were there already and I spotted a few I recognized. One of the ladies I had played cards with a couple of weeks ago spotted me and came over to ask if I wanted to make the fourth for a table of euchre. I told her I would as soon as I grabbed a coffee. I thought I noticed a couple of people staring at me for a minute or so longer than they normally would have, but no one even asked me if my contacts had been bothering me. That was going to be my answer to any questions, as it never hurts to tell the truth. I played a couple of games, which my partner and I won before my partner wanted to drop out and we were prepared to close up the game until we found another player. Just then the man who had been oblivious to my presence the first couple of weeks I had been there asked if he could sit in as the fourth player. Since it had been my partner that had dropped out I was now sitting across the table playing cards with a man that I found slightly attractive. He had not played cards at the other couple of meetings, but I had no way of knowing if he actually was a card player or not. If he had been sizing me up at earlier gatherings it was rather strange that he would chose to sit in on our card game the first time I showed up wearing my glasses. We played for another hour before we lost another player. By this time I had introduced myself to Tim and was rewarded with a big smile as he told me his name. After the game we helped ourselves to coffee and cookies and I sat and chatted with Tim as we sipped the coffee and nibbled at the cookies. Over coffee he told me that his wife had recently lost her life after a rather long and drawn out battle with ovarian cancer. I told him about Mike’s 6 month decline in health, ending in his death. You can talk to people about someone you love having cancer, but in all reality they do not understand what you, as the partner, went through up until they finally left your life. Only another spousal survivor really knows. As the evening ended I said my goodbye to Tim and went out to meet the cab that I had pre-arranged my pickup time with. He had not said a word about my glasses. No questions about their obvious strength, no comments about how I must have recently stopped wearing my contacts – nothing, nothing at all. I found that a little strange but I have to admit that I was not terribly displeased when Tim asked me if I was coming back the following week and I saw a smile cross his face as he replied to my answer by saying that he would look forward to seeing me again. I hadn’t given much thought to the idea that the obviously powerful lenses in my glasses might have been what finally attracted Tim to me. When I first met Mike 40 years ago, just after we had both graduated from University, I had been wearing contacts. We dated for about 3 months before I even admitted that I had extremely poor eyesight. And it was probably another 3 months before I even let Mike see me wearing my glasses for the first time. His reaction was predictable and his first comment was something like, “wow, you weren’t kidding about how strong your glasses were.” My needing strong and thick glasses did not seem to scare him away, even though I told him I had inherited my poor eyesight from my dad, and that it was highly likely that if we had children they would also be at risk for high myopia. We went on to marriage and 3 children, and Mike never once said anything more about my wearing glasses or the fact that 3 out of 3 children also needed glasses. I saw Tim again the following week at the meeting and I enjoyed his company and our conversation. Once again he never said a word about my glasses and since I already was feeling pretty self-conscious about having to wear them I was glad to be able to avoid any conversation about them. The next week was hopefully the last meeting I was going to have to wear my glasses to, because my redness had disappeared and I expected to get the all clear to be able to return to wearing my contacts in 2 days when I went back to see my eye doctor. And when I did go to my appointment I picked up my new contact lenses and was told I was good to go. I asked where the conjunctivitis had come from and was told I could have picked it up anywhere, as it is a bacterial infection and all I had to do was rub my eye after touching something that an infected person had touched. Or, I might have had allergic conjunctivitis, as I did sometimes suffer from allergies. It didn’t matter now, as long as I could go back to wearing my contact lenses. I returned to the church hall wearing contacts once again, and I spent time chatting and playing cards with Tim as a partner. I didn’t notice anything different about his attitude towards me and other than commenting on how I must be wearing contacts again not a word was said about my eyesight. I did feel that Tim was showing interest in possibly asking me on a date, but I really didn’t know how I would handle that request as I felt that it was still a little too soon to replace Mike in my life. I wasn’t worried about my children’s reactions, as my daughters had already told me I needed to get out and have some fun. But I don’t know how Steve would take it as he had been very close to his dad. Our initial date came after I had known Tim for about 6 months. I felt that it had been long enough for me to play the part of the merry widow, and I really needed to go out in public again as one half of a couple. The occasion came when I received an invitation to a showing at the art museum. My oldest daughter Brittany’s best friend was turning into a rather well known artist and Britt asked me if I could show up and support Julie. I didn’t feel like going alone and I managed to ask Tim at the Tuesday night meeting if he would consider escorting me. He agreed, and we had a very pleasant time. Britt was there and when I had mentioned that I might ask a friend to come with me I had not mentioned that it would be a male friend. Britt and her husband Allan went for coffee with Tim and me after the showing. Britt had been undergoing a bunch of testing in order for her to have implantable contact lenses placed in her eyes. Britt had a prescription very close to mine. She was a little lower in the spherical, but she had -3.75D of astigmatism in one eye and around -3.50D in the other. At this time there were no implantable lenses that could correct the astigmatism as well as the spherical error and the eye doctor she was using suggested that she could have the astigmatism taken care of by having laser surgery. Her only other option would be to wait for the FDA to give their approval to a new type of implantable toric lens that was supposedly coming on the market soon. And that is when Tim surprised me with his knowledge. “I would strongly suggest having the laser surgery done Britt. If you have your astigmatism corrected by the implantable lens when you get older and need lens replacements for cataracts they will remove the implanted lenses and then you will have your astigmatism back. At the moment astigmatism correction is not possible with the cataract replacement lenses so you would then need the laser surgery to reshape your cornea. And actually, depending on what your spherical prescription is you might not even need replacement lenses.” Tim said. “My spherical is right around -23D for both eyes” Britt replied. “It is possible that you might not need implants done then. But they will likely implant multifocal lenses anyway, because with the removal of your own lenses you will lose any reading accommodation that you might now have.” Tim replied. “That is basically what my eye doctor has suggested to be the best, and most cost effective course of action.” Britt said. “How do you know so much about this Tim? You’ve seen my glasses. What would you suggest for me then?” I asked. “I have been interested in eyes and vision for years. I thought I would like to be an optometrist when I was younger, but I just never got off my rear end and did anything about it. But I have followed the world of vision care all my life. My advice to you Karen would be to just wait until you need to have your cataracts removed and then make the decision as to which lenses you want to have put in.” “But I am only 62. My doctor says it could be years before my lenses cloud over and need replacement.” I replied. “The truth of the matter is that all forms of vision surgery are optional and they can be dangerous. You can minimize the danger by choosing a top surgeon and paying what he or she asks for the surgery. The risks are far less than they were in the early years, but there are plenty of horror stories out there about operations that went wrong and the outcomes were really bad for the patients. The cataract surgery is the simplest and the safest, but it is not without an occasional problem either. You look good wearing glasses Karen, and you look just as good wearing contact lenses. Just don’t do anything to risk your eyesight until you have to.” I replied. “That is well said Tim. I wish Britt would listen to your advice.” Allan responded. “Well, it is true Allan that sometimes the lens replacement surgery does bring on cataracts earlier than will happen if they eyes are not touched. Any form of surgery on the eye can do that. I had glaucoma in one eye and they operated to put in a drain. Then about 6 years later I had to have a cataract removed. A friend of mine’s wife had a retinal detachment. After it was fixed she had laser surgery on that eye and was preparing to have laser on the other eye. But then she developed a cataract and had to have a lens replacement. No one knows for sure, but I highly suspect that the cataract was a result of the trauma to the eye.” I answered. “Are you suggesting that if I have the lens implants I might get cataracts sooner?” Britt asked. “Britt, I am not an eye doctor, nor am I a specialist in any form. I do read a lot on this topic, and this is just some information I have discovered. You are in our early 30’s and have your whole life ahead of you. If you figure your life would be better without you needing glasses then you need to go for it.” Tim responded. “Well, if there is any danger to her eyesight I sure wish she wouldn’t do it. I married Britt knowing she was very nearsighted and wore strong glasses and that fact doesn’t bother me at all.” Allan said. “You have certainly given me something to think about Tim. It has been a pleasure meeting you. And mom, give me a call when you have a chance.” Britt said. Tim had handled himself very well with my daughter and son in law. And he had also given both of us something to think about. When you have had very poor eyesight all your life one of your dreams is to be able to discard your glasses and be able to see like normal people. Very few glasses wearers will ever tell you that they love their glasses. Britt’s younger sister is one of the few girls around that has never seemed to have a problem with wearing glasses. Cara got her first glasses when she was 10, and now she is 25 and has never wanted to wear contact lenses. Her prescription isn’t high like mine and Britt and Stephen’s but it is still a respectable -10.00D and change. However, as Tim had explained so nicely, there were risks involved. I had planned to wait until after Britt had her eyes fixed before I did anything about fixing my own poor eyesight. Now I wasn’t sure if Britt would still want to go through with the operation. I knew Britt. She would not have taken everything Tim told her as gospel truth, and Tim had very carefully explained that he was not a specialist, just an informed reader. Britt would discuss everything Tim had told her with her eye doctor and then she would make her decision. I could tell from the thoughtful expression on her face after she had talked with Tim that she had some reservations that were not going to be easily cast aside. I had also been a bit surprised when Allan had suggested that Britt should not risk her eyesight by having an operation. I had not realized that Allan did not mind the fact that Britt needed very strong glasses. Britt wasted no time in seeing her eye doctor to quell the fears that Tim had instilled in her. When she called me to tell me about her discussion she advised me that everything Tim had mentioned had been true. Her doctor could not give her a guarantee that she would not get cataracts earlier if she had lens replacement surgery, but he did try to soft peddle that possibility. Britt wasn’t buying it though. When Britt talked to me about it she was now convinced that it was not a good investment to spend about ten grand to have internal contact lenses implanted as well as to have her astigmatism and any residual myopia lasered away only to have a cataract possibly develop within 5 to 10 years. In a way this was a classic catch 22 situation. Britt was in her mid 30’s and it was quite likely that she would not normally develop cataracts until she was in her late 60’s. This would mean that she needed to be prepared to wear glasses or contacts for at least another 35 years. But if she spent the money to have her eyes fixed now she could possibly need the cataract operation by her mid to late 40’s. Allan, who had initially agreed for Britt to spend the money was now back peddling on his decision and he wanted Britt to wait for a few more years. Since Allan seemed to be fine with her wearing glasses at times Britt was more inclined to forego the operation and as her mother I agreed with her decision. I spent a bit more time with Tim. He took me out to dinner a couple of times, and I had him over to my place for a home cooked meal. That evening he asked me if I always wore contact lenses, or if I sometimes wore my glasses. I told him that I very seldom wore glasses when I was with other people and his only comment was that that was too bad because he thought I looked very nice wearing my glasses. That wasn’t enough of a hint that I was going to make an effort to wear my glasses for Tim, but it did make me feel that I need not fear wearing glasses around him. It had been over a week since I had seen or heard from Tim. I had been at the weekly meeting of “Adults without Partners”, and Tim had not been there. I had been fairly sure that we had been getting along well, and this was very strange that he did not call me. I wanted to call him and see if he was all right, or if he had been called out of town for a family emergence somewhere, as I knew he had 2 married daughters that did not live here. I was a little hesitant to call Tim, as I did not want to show that I was more interested in him than he was in me, but finally after waiting a couple more days I brought myself to the point where I called him out of concern for his well-being. Tim answered his phone. He told me he had not been out of town, but had been fairly busy and had accidentally missed the meeting. He said he would see me at the next meeting, and thanked me for my concern about his health. It was rather a strange call. I had thought that we might soon be reaching the point of intimacy, and while part of me wanted this, another part of me was telling me I was not quite ready. But from the tone of Tim’s voice I now felt that intimacy was a long way off – if ever. There was just something strange and distant about the call and now I felt like I had been reading too much into our friendship. Still, I decided that the next time I saw Tim I would tackle him about his current attitude. I did this when the next meeting came along and I grabbed a coffee and cornered Tim at one of the tables off by itself. I attempted to tell Tim that my concern for him was only because I liked him as a person and worried about him when I hadn’t heard from him or seen him for a couple of weeks , but he cut me off and told me that I deserved an explanation. “I have to tell you that there is nothing wrong with you Karen. You are an attractive lady and you are a very nice person to be with. I am the one who has a problem. You see, all of my life I have been attracted to ladies who wear glasses. My late wife did wear them, but her prescription was only around -6.00D. That was a strong enough prescription that she needed to wear glasses, or contacts, all the time and it was enough to keep my interest in her for all of our married life. But when she passed I decided that I would not even develop an interest in any lady that did not wear glasses.” Tim said. “But I do wear glasses, and very strong glasses at that.” I responded. “You do need strong glasses but in reality you never wear glasses. After your eye infection cleared up I have not seen you wearing glasses at all and when I asked you if you sometimes wore glasses the last time I was over at your place for dinner your response was that you never wore your glasses when you were in the company of others. That made me realize that you were not going to be a good fit for me, because you would never wear your glasses.” Tim told me. “I hate wearing my glasses. It makes me feel so self-conscious when I have to wear them in front of people.” I replied. “And therein lies the crux of the matter. I am not terribly interested in a person who does not wear glasses. Just the fact that you need strong glasses is not enough to keep my attention unless I am able to see you wearing them from time to time. That is why I decided it would be best for both of us if we each went our separate ways.” Tim said. I had never heard of anything so ridiculous. I had hated my glasses and my poor eyesight as long as I could remember. Oh, maybe when I was a little girl I loved them, but that was only because I couldn’t see a thing without them and no one had ever teased me about them yet. But when I started school and the other kids called me four eyes and made the occasional nasty comment about me being blind, I remember detesting the fact that I needed them so badly. My world changed when I got my contact lenses and I would never be able to go back to wearing glasses. Other than his desire to make me wear my glasses Tim seemed like a pretty nice guy. I thought we had gotten on well together. But I really could not reconcile the fact that he was attracted to me only for my glasses. It was likely for the best that we did not see each other again. I did miss the friendship I had developed with Tim though. And when my daughter Britt, who had met Tim a couple of times and liked him, asked me if Tim and I would be interested in going to the opening of a stage play I had to tell her that Tim and I were no longer a couple. Of course she wanted to know the reason why and I could see no reason not to tell her the truth. Britt listened to what I had to say and then she surprised me when she told me that she knew that Tim was what she called an “optic obsessive”. I asked her how she knew that, and she told me that the signs were all there if I had known what to look for. “What signs?” I asked. “He was far too well informed about eyesight and vision for him to just be an informed reader. And he told you that you looked just as attractive wearing glasses as you did wearing your contacts. Of course mother, I have a little bit of an advantage over you when it comes to spotting men that are this way. Allan is an optic obsessive person as well, and so was Daddy.” Britt said. “I didn’t know that about Allan. How did you find out?” I asked. ‘The signs were very simple. He loves for me to put on my glasses as soon as I got home from work. And whenever we make love he wants me to wear my glasses. And when I asked him about it one day he told me that my glasses were a real turn on for him. But I already had a pretty good feeling that Allan was like that because I had seen the same signs in Daddy over the years.” Britt said. “Why hadn’t I noticed that in your dad?” I asked. “People only see what they want to see mom. You hated your poor eyesight and your thick glasses all of your life and you couldn’t imagine anyone being attracted to what you thought was terrible. But I know that Daddy often wanted you to wear your glasses in bed, and I could see his eyes light up when you came into the living room after you changed from your contacts to your glasses for the evening. He adored you wearing glasses mom.” Britt told me. “Is that why you sometimes wear glasses when you and Allan go out Britt?” I asked. “That isn’t the only reason mom. When you need strong glasses like we do there is a strong reluctance to wear them out in public. But, as you found out a few months back there sometimes are things that are out of our control and we have to wear glasses so I have found that it is a better option for me to wear my glasses once in a while so that no one is surprised when and if I do have to wear them. The fact that Allan is turned on by my wearing glasses is just a little bonus.” Brit replied. “Tell me Britt, what do I do about Tim?” I queried. “Either call him up and tell him you have decided to wear your glasses more when you two are together, or make sure that you are wearing your glasses when you accidentally run into him somewhere. And then when you see him tell him you have decided that you are going to wear your glasses more frequently.” Britt responded.
I decided I would call Tim and invite him to the play with Britt and Allan and myself. Britt had told me that she would be wearing her glasses that evening and that the seats we had would be close enough to the stage that we would not have any trouble seeing things properly. I had already decided I would wear my own glasses, but I was unsure as to how I should handle things if Tim asked me straight out if I was going to wear glasses for him. I needn’t have worried. Tim was ever the gentleman and didn’t mention a word about me possibly wearing my glasses for him. The look on his face when he came to the door to pick me up that evening was priceless though. Not a word was said about my glasses throughout the evening, but I could now tell that both Allan and Tim were enjoying looking at the bespectacled visages of both myself and Britt. And I think this made the evening all the more enjoyable for everyone. Tim did ask me a few days later when we were out to dinner at a restaurant he had invited me to if I planned to wear my glasses a little more frequently for him. I gazed at his face through the strong lenses of my glasses and asked, “What do you think?” Specs4ever June 2016