Take care of your eyes; you can't buy them from a grocery store.

Last night while I was fetching my son in my mother-in-law's residence, I had a chat with my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law while my husband took the thing that we brought earlier that day.

Let me thank these wonderful people before I continue

We talked about random things and came up with cell phones. My sister inlaw's kids were very addicted to phones and now they are wearing eyeglasses. Nanay then said that she had a cataract and was advised by a doctor for a laser treatment but she does not want to because she had known some that had gone blind after laser. Cataract removal will also be a no-no to her because it's very scary, she was told that one can see the blades scaping through the eyes while on a cataract removal operation.

Then Ate Inday told us that William, the kid who lived in their house for a few years was advised by a doctor for his eyes to be pulled out because something white was in it, " a cataract that came from the inside" that's what they told me. When the eyes was left as sis, there will be a greater chance for the illness to come over to the other eye. The cause is not yet identified but the mother says t was in their blood.

The mother related to Ate Inday that William's vision on his eye which has white on the pupil, is already blurred and that kid tells his mother: " ma buta lagi along isa ka mata".

I suddenly felt sorry for William because I had once a board mate and the same time classmate in college that had her one eye pulled out because of the same story. It was discovered when she was 6 years old when she ate at a party and her mother jokingly cover one eye while eating then she said "stop mom, I cannot see" The parents were shocked and they immediately went to an ophthalmologist and was advised for the eye to be pulled out, They sold most of their land for the operation to be done that time. Her eyes were then replaced by an artificial eye and every night she removed it for cleaning.

I cannot imagine a 4 year old child will go through so much like this.

You know people like them were likely to be bullied by their looks, especially by people who are insensitive to the situation and what they have been through. My husband has a co-worker as a CVO, and he had only one eye too, he often wears sunglasses to hide his appearance.

Now, how do you feel about your eyes? Have you been abusing them by looking at screens longer than you give them rest? Have you been using your phone with a very bright light on? Do you sleep with a bright light above your bed? Do you wash your face after long hours of work? Do you eat lots of yellowish vegetables and take eye supplements?

You might want to change these things starting today, you better start taking care of your eyes because you can't buy them from the grocery store. This might sound funny but take its deeper meaning; you might be able to buy eyeglasses and contact lenses to see better but remember this: once your eyes are damaged, you can't bring what you had once back then.

I am so glad that my father told me that when I was very young and it became a core memory for me. Not just the eyes that we should take care of but our whole body, sadly my father ate his words and continued on smoking cigarettes until he can't make it no more.

After hearing William's story, I made eyes in my make-shift sketchbook, I even wrote the title of this article there as a tribute to William. (0.07 mechanical pencil on bondpaper)

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=3224611554487426&set=pcb.3224613547820560

The photo above is William; I took it from their Facebook account and the link is below the photo

Let's all take care of our eyes and the people around us.

Keep safe