Karen Taylor had to be carefully feeling her way through the items on her small makeshift stall, perched on a narrow pavement on Orange Street, downtown Kingston, as she attended to customers in the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping, last Friday.

This is where Kay, 67, as she is known in the streets, has been selling her wares for the festive season. The blind, elderly woman recently stocked up on some mats hoping to make a nice ‘change’ this Christmas.

“Them soon sell off man. Yuh know everybody a guh want them likkle doormat or house mat fi di Christmas,” said Taylor with a touch of optimism.

But the woman explained that her hustle is only now on the rebound since it flatlined three years ago when she lost her sight, literally overnight.

“Mi just wake up one morning and mi eyes them foggy,” she explained. “I went to the hospital three years straight and them don’t do anything. Them tell mi that my blood count low, and I need to come back. Every time mi go back I still didn’t get any help, until one morning in November 2016, I wake up and all I see is darkness,” Taylor said.

After losing her sight, Taylor said she could no longer afford to buy goods, having used up all her savings on living and medical expenses. This led to her being kicked out of a house she had rented, leaving her virtually homeless.

“The man where I used to live say I have to leave his place because I couldn’t pay the rent. I even still have a lot of my stuff down there because mi couldn’t carry everything with mi since mi did already blind. I don’t even know if him throw them out or burn the up,” she said.

“Mi just pick up myself and go to a friend and ask her if mi can stay wid her until mi finish up a likkle room fi mi self,” she added.

Although she has four children, two of whom live in Jamaica and the other living in the United States, Taylor said none of them have come to her assistance.

“My first daughter died. I have a son who don’t pay mi any mind and my youngest daughter in Trelawny, she don’t pay mi any mind neither. I have another daughter in Miami, who I don’t see in years, and I have a brother who don’t talk to me anymore,” Taylor said.

Overwhelmed by the neglect of her own children, the woman wept openly, explaining that she has to rely on the kindness of strangers to assist her.

“Every time mi member how mi tek care a them and none a dem not even look pon mi or buy mi a plate a food, mi hurt inna mi heart,” the woman cried.

“Mi guh through it wid dem man. Mi tek care a them and mi nuh see them nuh time at all. Mi nuh have no help like somebody fi carry mi go town and bring mi back. Is just me alone. If mi a guh some weh and is somebody mi haffi a beg fi guh wid me. Sometimes mi ask some people and them nuh interested,” Taylor explained.

“Is just by the wonder of God mek mi still a try because mi cyah siddung and wait fi people help mi. I don’t have anybody to give me anything,” she added.

Taylor’s plight is further exacerbated by the fact that she doesn’t have a cane to help her manoeuver Kingston’s busy streets.

“I went to look about a walking stick and them tell me it is $4,000. I don’t have that money. The likkle things them weh mi sell only can pay for my food and my bus fare. Is just to keep myself going so that I don’t have to beg nobody because I don’t want nobody disrespect mi. That is just my fear, that if I beg, people going to disrespect mi,” Taylor said.

“But mi need a walking stick because I fall down nuff time because is not all the time someone is willing to help me. So sometimes mi a guh through pon mi own and because mi nuh have the stick, mi step and mi foot slip and mi fall down. Nuff time that happen to me, but mi still haffi guh through same way,” she added.

And although other vendors around her often come to her aid, Taylor said travelling on public transportation to and from Red Hills, where she now lives with a friend, is taxing, physically and emotionally.

“The people around me help me out a lot. Them look out fi mi. But sometimes when nobody not there to help mi cross di road, mi just stand up and cry before mi build up di strength fi go cross,” she said.

One of Taylor’s friends, Angela, another vendor beside her who walks her to the bus stop in the evenings, insisted that she is in desperate need of a cane to help her get around.

“Every evening is me carry her to the bus stop because she nuh really have nobody else. Even though she old she have the stamina fi walk, but since she lose her sight she can hardly help herself sometimes,” Angela said.

“It would be good if she could get some help with a walking stick,” she added.

Executive Director of the Jamaica Council for Persons Living with Disabilities, Dr Christine Hendricks weighed on the challenges faced by elderly persons living with disabilities face in Jamaica, explaining that especially for elderly persons like Kay who would have only recently become blind, not having family members makes it more difficult for persons to adjust.

“That is one of the challenges of getting older and acquiring a disability. Family members sometimes neglect their loved ones and that neglect makes the situation worse because if the person was never prepared for such eventuality and it happens upon you, when you become blind it magnifies the challenge,” Hendricks told the Sunday Observer.

She said that while the Government provides economic support and training for persons living with disabilities, elderly persons are often still at a disadvantage without the support of family members.

“The Government provides a number of services, which are not nearly enough but in her case, these services would range from an economic grant to either help her with health care or expand her business.”

“But usually persons who would need support, it would be provided by a family member of close friend or sometimes a community. The Council does not have a cadre of personal assistants at this time. We provide shadows for children in school but, our organisation does not provide that otherwise. The meager resources that we have would not be able to manage a daily paid assistant to work with her. So personal aid is not a programme we have adopted in Jamaica. Also, we don’t have persons who are willing to volunteer to assist persons with disabilities,” said Hendricks.

In terms of housing for persons living with disabilities, Hendricks explained that this is only provided for persons who are contributors with the National Housing Trust.

“But if she has just acquired her blindness the Jamaica Society for the Blind can provide training for her in terms of her mobility and understanding her environment. They would come to wherever she sells or lives to show her how to maneuver herself and provide her with some skills as well,” she said.

“I have known persons who have become blind in their retirement years and they still have quality life because they got the mobility training, and they would have gotten counseling to really walk them through until they gain that confidence to know that life doesn’t end,” Hendricks added.

Documents required for registration with the Jamaica Council for Persons Living with Disabilities are: birth certificate, TRN, NIS, national ID, and a passport-size photograph.

In the meantime, Taylor remains hopeful that her sight will return since she is to return to the Kingston Pubic Hospital to operate on her right eye.

“Mi cyah give up because mi just feel like God a guh give me back mi eye sight. Di doctor a KPH did tell mi say after she finish wid di eye next year, I am going to see again. So mi not giving up,” said Taylor.