Lessons My Mother Never Imagined

On a trip to a new, unfamiliar, dentist office, I made a mistake when I tried to exit the lobby. White cane in hand, I opened the door and was surprised to see someone standing behind it, back turned to me.

“Excuse me,” I said, shutting the door. I felt embarrassed. I hoped no one else in the lobby saw me do it. I didn’t hear anything on the other side of the door. I wondered what I’d just done. Then I opened the door again, gingerly.

No one was standing there. It was a long winter coat on a hanger. I’d just apologized to a coat closet.

I make this kind of visual mistake all the time. In my life it goes with the territory. I can accept it with aplomb once or twice a day, but more embarrassment than that rattles me.

At such times I try to remember my mother’s good-manners basic training. “Please, thank you, and excuse me will carry you a long way in the world,” she would say. She could have added “…when you screw up!” but she never talked that way.

She was right. Her lessons squeezed me through some tight spots over the years. Then the world changed in ways she never imagined.

Before 2001, I used a white cane as an ad hoc mobility tool only when I needed it – walking in unfamiliar terrain, descending stairs, entering dark hallways. After 9/11, airports became a mandatory addition to my white-cane list. Airports were no place to stumble and get it wrong. Misread a sign or step into a restricted area and you could get tasered.

Now I use the cane every time I walk in public. I don’t see people approaching me until I’m right in front of them. Sometimes I trip over their little dogs. When I sweep the cane in front of me, I am safer, and they are safer, too.

I still make the kinds of innocent mistakes made recently by fully sighted people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lost and looking for directions on a lonely country road? I’ve been there. Knocking on a door at the wrong address? I’ve done that. Climbing into the wrong car in a parking lot? Guilty. To the extent I see them, all cars look alike.

The next time I do this, with or without a white cane, I will stand my ground. I’ve worked too hard to maintain my independence to surrender it now to an unsafe world. Before I resort to my mother’s “Please-thank you-excuse me” social mantra, I need to try something else. “Don’t shoot!”

About the Image: State Representative Justin Jones leaving the Tennessee House chamber after being expelled for leading a gun-control protest on April 5, 2023. [Credit: Jon Cherry for The New York Times]