Sightless hope, a memoir

By Robert w Kingett.

Part one. Exploring while you’re young.

Prologue.

I opened my eyes and found I was still trapped in this dark, cold abyss. I knew that I was going to have to try to find my way out. If I couldn’t, I might run out of air. The cavity wasn’t very big, so you’d think finding my way out would be rather easy, but it wasn’t.
I felt the corpulent walls, searching for any possible way I could escape. I struggled to breathe now. The air supply was getting low and I could feel my life slipping away. I was too young to die. After all, I was only six months old. I knew this because while I was inside this cavern, I studied the effect that the economic growth of America had on various third-world countries and how this affected the development of nuclear and chemical weapons, which led to the arms race between America and the Soviet Union.
Suddenly, a gateway opened and a luminous light beamed down on me. I thought I would be able to escape from this treacherous void. I began crawling out, but a giant hand grabbed me and I was unable to break free from its grasp. It pulled me out of the chasm. The light was so blinding, I couldn’t open my eyes all the way. I did the only thing I could. I cried.

And so a new writer was born.

Doctors all crowded around me like I was the next hot thing on eBay. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Nurses even stole a peak at me from time to time amidst all of the professionals. Everyone in that New York hospital delivery room had both their eyeballs on little old me crying my dear old heart out. The only one who hadn’t seen me yet was the person that pushed me out of her vagina. That person was my mom. As she watched all the doctors crowed around this new infant she smiled. She at last had a kid. Her life's goal and dream. She wanted to have a kid of her own, but she didn’t expect to have one at the age of 21. Her boyfriend didn’t even know she was here. She had cleverly told him that she was going to be out of town this break. It didn’t matter anyway, because she got her bachelors degree anyway. What did it matter that she skipped important exams. It was after all very early in the morning. Around 7:00 to be precise. She was safe. He would never ever know.

“Where’s my baby.” She said looking all about for me. After she got me, something happened that nearly shocked her to pieces. I wasn’t breathing right. She gave me a quick smack on the butt to get me to cry, and that seemed to rectify the issue… for now.

When she was signing the birth certificate she suddenly had a nasty thought. I didn’t know about this at the time, or even years later. No one told me. I had to look it up myself years later. As she was signing the birth certificate she came across the blank with father written on it. She thought for the longest time slowly chewing on her lip. She needed a drink, or perhaps a good hit of pot to calm her down. She couldn't do it here of course, but the thought just came so shoddily she didn’t know what to do she wanted to pay back that bastard Billy for what he did. Leaving her like this. He better damn well pay child support. She thought while looking at the birth certificate. Slowly, and with a shaking hand, she skipped the label father, and put down my name. Robert William Kingett.

After all that was taken care of she at last realized something, I was not in her arms. She ran back to the room looking for me, but where was I? I wasn’t there. In desperation she looked for help. She seen a nurse coming her direction and she stopped her.

“Where’s my baby!” she almost bellowed. the nurse looked at her with sad eyes. She feared the worst.

“He’s not dead is he?” the nurse just shook her head.

“No. he's having some trouble breathing. This is actually very common with patience that is born premature. His lungs are not working right, so we needed to place him in an incubator.” My mom went to where ICU was located and somehow found me with my head down, and my eyes closed. My chest was barely moving. My mom looked in the glass at me just laying there in this box. She had just graduated college, and now she was looking in on her new son. She didn’t know if I would live or not, but she did know one thing for sure. Her mom and dad were going to kill her. She had met Billy through college, both people top students in their high schools and not doing so bad in college either. He had moved here from England because he needed a change of scenery. She loved him so much. I never saw my father, so I don't know even what he looks like. I imagine he was thin, with black hair. My mom never actually told me about him or how he looked. All I have is a name. As my mom looked in at the glass where I lay, she had a sudden urge of anger flash through her like lightening. She couldn't take care of me! She pictured baby dippers strung across the floor and vomits everywhere! There was no way out however and she knew that. She just didn’t want to have her parents down her neck. So what if he didn’t fuck her with a condom on, that was a mistake. She knew it. She didn’t however; want to accept the fact that it was both of their mistakes. It was his entire god damn fault anyway. Why didn’t he use a fucking condom? Oh well. Even though she was pissed off beyond all belief she couldn't help but loving what he made. As she watched me struggle to breathe in that little incubator, she looked up towards the heavens and vowed to never do one thing. Give up. She would figure out how to cope somehow. It can't be that hard right? If other people could do it, then damn it so could she. She wasn’t a pussy city girl. She was a tough redneck ready to battle al odds, and take care of me. What she had no way of knowing however, was that I would become disabled in just 5 months,

I was 6 ounces but I was definitely a fighter. I thrived to hear my mom’s voice on the outside of my little home I had been in for 4 months. My 5th month on this earth came around the corner hiding something terrible under its arm. It was a terrible event that no one even looked out for, even the nurses. My lungs were slowly getting worse, and I was losing air. Doctors thought the best way to rectify the situation was by literally forcing air through me. That was a bad move. They stuck tubes in me and through my heart and quite literally pumped oxygen forcefully into me. No one knew it, but they were in fact giving me too much, which would have serious consequences later on in my life. After about the 8th month in that hospital I at last had the chance to go home.

Even though they said that I was ready to go home, they didn’t want to release me just yet. I don't know how my mom knew that I had CP, or the fact that I was visually impaired. I also don’t know when my mom found that out about me. The doctors did tell her one thing over and over again like some broken record that followed her everywhere she went.

“He won’t be able to walk.”

When I finally did walk after my 1st birthday I could just imagine my mom having this huge smile on her face.

I assume that my grandmother fetched me after that point in time because my mom later told me that she saw me take my first steps. I don't know how or when my grandmother came and got me from my own mom’s house. I just know that it happened. My mom would often joke around and say that she stole me away from her right out of my basket by the front door. I, however, didn’t know if that was even true or not.

All I know of that actually happened was that I ended up in my grandmother’s and grandfather’s home after my first birthday, and that was where I would stay for 11 years.