What DId I See?

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Ram Goli

Ms. Gardner

English 10H 2

24 January 2014

What Did I See?

I was upset; I was perspiring; my hands tightly clasped the stone- cold clicker. Press the

button when you see a black dot appear, said the nurse. Then she flipped off the lights in the

chilly evaluation room and left me, with only the menacing machine to look through.

I sat in front of the device, looking through its padded eyepiece, desperately trying tolocate each black dot as it appeared. A few minutes passed by, and I hardly noticed any. Anxiety

crept over me.

The nurse came back, along with Dr. Boyle. He tore the slip of paper that the machine

spat out the back , gave it a quick once over, and reported, Well Ram, it looks like youre going

to need glasses. Had all those lo ng nights of squinting precariously at Harry Potter , or the

Hardy Boys by the dim lights of my bedside lamp finally caught up with me, as my mother had

warned?

Ram! Its time to go to sleep. Squint any longer and your eyes will stay that way! She

irritably called from the hallway. Nevertheless, I didnt want to. I wanted Fudge to finally

witness the return of Voldemort, though I had already read it numerous times. But that didnt

matter. I continued to read, and reread. Everything else around me might have seemed hazy, but

as long as my eyes and my mind captured the story in crisp detail, I was content.

Sitting in my chair, I reluctantly pulled the glasses out of my backpack, and perched them

on my face. Oh, how I despised them. The cold metal felt like an ice pick driving into my brain,


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picking its way through the nooks and crannies of my confidence. My mother always told me

that shed never lie to me; everything she says, through and through, is gold. Maybe I should

have listened.

A few weeks after putting on glasses for the first time, my baby brother, Srihan, was

born, in Santa Rosa. My dad sat next to the hospital bed while nurses wandered in and out of the

room, checking on my mom who lay in the bed, scribbling down numbers on the computer next

to her as the lines spiked and fell all over the black screen. I noticed the colorful swirls and

spirals running down the length of the bed, looping around the back and finally interlacing at the

foot. I wanted to hold my brother, who was lying next to my mom, but my dad said that I shouldwait a while. He was still fragile, and small, and most of all, pink. He shined with a soft pink, but

the doctors only smiled when I pointed it out.

As new nurses walked in and out, poking and prodding him, he constantly turned his

head back and forth, taking in everything he saw. I almost wished that he would stop, for the

back and forth motion of his neck began to worry me. I wondered what he was seeing. Babies

cant focus their eyes very well, right? I asked one nurse .

Thats right, she answered. He wont be able to focus on things more than a foot away

for two or three months. And hell only see in black and white. Only when hes three months old

will he be able to see all the colors.

Thats odd, I thought to myse lf. We come into this world without color. As I pushed my

glasses back up the bridge of my nose, I chuckled to myself, thinking that although I was stuck

with glasses and ever-worsening vision, I could probably see better than this little guy. I reached

out to stroke his soft head, and the feather-soft hairs tickled my palm.


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By the time Srihan reached the age of five months, I could tell that he began to see things,

recognize, and remember. He had heeded the nurses words. He would smile every time I walked

into the room, or when the television was turned on, or when my mother held up his favorite jar

of Gerber baby food. He almost always reminded me of the Mona Lisa. His eyes carefully and

meticulously followed everything, tracking something until it was finally out of his sight.

Experts like Nick Pisa say that in the eyes of Da Vincis 500 year -old masterpiece lies a hidden

code, only visible with the aided eye (signal phrase). In Srihans eyes, I could see his uniqueness .

When he was just a few months old, barely possessing the strength to lift his plump head off of

his neck, my parents would set him on the ground, giving him the freedom to explore the house,instead of the inside of a caged crib. Hed look at everything, t ouch everything, smell everything,

lick everything, and throw everything. And when something lay just outside of his reach, hed

lay flat on his stomach, and roll there. Like an overzealous puppy rolling through the lush green

grass, Srihan turned round and round all through the house.

Midway through my third grade year, my family and I began to notice something

different about Srihan. Do you see that white spot in his eye? my dad would ask.

No, I dont see anything, my mom and I would respond in unison .

I swear that I saw something.

I received the news after returning home from school one day.

Ram, we have to tell you something, my parents began. I looked at their faces; their

eyes were brimmed with a tear or two, a red hue masked over where there used to be white. I

heard a sniffle, and saw used tissues resting some distance away on the table.


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Srihan has a retinoblastoma, a tumor on his retina. The doctors are going to have to use

chemotherapy to remove it, and maybe even administer some laser tre atment, they said . Their

hands clenched down on the edges of the table, and I could tell that pain plagued their voices.

I didnt understand much of what they said at first. Retinoblastoma? Tumor?

Chemotherapy? Did I hear them correctly? Yet, as they sat me down at the table and carefully

explained to me what they had learned that day, the realization dawned over me.

Sometimes, I lost track of the time. It had already been six months? A year? How much

longer? I would come home from school and sit by Srihans side, watching him stare with an

empty gaze. As I found out from an online publisher, MedicineNet, I knew that the chemotherapyleft him feeling exhausted, worn out, and fatigued ( "Chemotherapy Drugs, Hair Loss, Side

Effects, Treatment") (signal phrase). I felt so ignorant. For months, I had dreamed and wished

that I could rid myself of my vision, my ru ined eyes. After looking at Srihans, I wouldnt have

hesitated to take his, and free him of the agony. I religiously listened to Bob Marleys Three

Little Birds, telling myself that everything would indeed be all right. It took eighteen months

of brute and horrifying chemotherapy before Srihans eye was finally erad icated of the tumor.

At the end of it all, my entire family and I changed. We developed patience, during the

long, silent sessions of treatment, in the small, lifeless hospital room overlooking the bustling

streets of San Francisco; courage, when Srihans blood tests came back still positive, signifying

yet another round of dreaded chemo; discipline, when the nights of restlessness, and sorrow, and

frustration, made us want to rip our hair out; most of all, faith, knowing that with time, all would

be well, and we would all be whole again. I had doubts along the way, but Srihans silent battling

and perseverance constantly reminded that the end would be near. No matter what Dr. Boyle told


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me, I knew my vision was clear. I could see the finish line, through all the fog that rested in my

way. I guess I just have an eye for some things.


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Works Cited

"Chemotherapy Drugs, Hair Loss, Side Effects, Treatment - MedicineNet." MedicineNet . N.p.,

n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.

Da Vinci, Leonardo. Mona Lisa . 1503-1506. Oil on wood. Louvre, Paris.

Marley, Bob. Three Little Birds. Exodus. Island Records Inc., 1977. MP3.

Pisa, Nick. "Mona Lisa Painting 'contains Hidden Code'" The Telegraph . Telegraph Media

Group, 10 Oct. 0054. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.

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What DId I See?