Love is blind…

ALTHOUGH 46-year-old Conrad Harris has been blind since birth, his disability did not prevent him from finding his wife Marion, to whom he has been married for the past 12 years. Harris, a programme director at Jamaica Society for the Blind, said he first came to know his wife when she was a volunteer who would spend her time reading and socialising with the other blind persons at the society.

“I used to listen and observe her and I found her to be very attractive. She seemed like someone who was caring and she loved to sing and was generally a happy person, so I thought that here was somebody I wanted to know more about,” he tells All Woman.

His opportunity to talk to her came during a church service at the Bethel Baptist Church in Half-Way-Tree, where she was a usher. His organisation was hosting a function at the church and Marion had come up to him and introduced herself.

“I still remember the outfit he had on that day,” says Marion, a school teacher. “He was just absolutely stunning and so I went up to introduce myself to him. When I did so, he was evidently dumbstruck.”

After talking to her for a while, Harris handed her an invitation to another function and told her she could take someone along with her. But in a move that left him blushing from pure shock, she asked him if he wanted to come with her instead.

It was eight months after that he actually got to take her out.

“She told me yes, but having said yes, she wasn’t willing to set a date. Everytime I asked her, it just wasn’t convenient, it was as if she was avoiding me. So one day she was there and I said I’m taking you out for lunch now and she came with me.”

Since that day, the couple – who are the parents of an eight-year-old daughter – has been inseparable. And although Marion says persons tend to have a problem with his blindness, it is their problem, not hers.

“Conrad doesn’t have a disability. If anything, I am the one with the disability because he gets a lot of things done around the house, even more than me. He takes care of anything. If I want a book, he goes online and gets it and he is the one who deals with banking transactions and so forth. He has also travelled to many parts of the world,” she says.

LIKE Marion, Peter Watson does not believe his wife Dr Heather Little-White suffers from a disability. “We don’t go through each day thinking of the what everybody calls a ‘disability’. Because I don’t see it as a disability. I see it as an unfortunate accident which she has reconciled with in her own mind. So we just move ahead each day, doing what we can,” he says.

Little-White is wheelchair-bound, owing to a shooting incident 10 years ago, which left her paralysed. But Watson says she is even more active than persons who can use both their legs. Because of this he says he sometimes forgets that she is in a wheelchair.

“We will go to a party and she will be there dancing in her chair. We go out to have fun, we go to plays we go to parties. We have a more active social life than a couple who has four legs,” he says.

Watson says he knew his wife prior to her injury because he and her brother were schoolmates. Although they lost touch, he followed her career over the years as a journalist, a nutritionist, and a lifestyle consultant.

It wasn’t until after her injury that they became reacquainted. He says he called her during an interview on KLAS and reminded her who he was and they kept in touch afterwards.

With him being a communication consultant, he says he and his wife, despite the fact that they are opposites, get along well. He continues to admire her courageousness and her zest for life. They have been married for four years.

“I didn’t marry her out of sympathy, because she doesn’t want anybody to feel sorry for her. It’s the worst thing you could do to somebody like Heather,” he says.

And although Little-White says she does have limitations, that has not affected their life. The sex expert says she and her husband still enjoy an active love life and find time to do things that enhances their relationship. This includes going out to restaurants and preparing candlelight dinners for each other at home.

Little-White cautions couples in similar positions not to let their disability prevent them from enjoying each other’s company.

ENJOYING each other’s company is something that Arlene and Sidney Thorpe have been doing for the past 25 years. During this time, they have learnt to deal with the criticism levelled against them by others who don’t understand their relationship.

“People don’t look at him as a person sometimes. But I have gone through a lot of things in life and he has been my strong tower, my support, my fortress. I don’t know where I would be without him today,” says Arlene.

Sidney, a blind pianist for the popular band Fab 5, met his wife during a call-in programme one night. She was a student at the Shortwood Teacher’s College at the time, and was a regular caller to the programme. That night when she called, the host introduced both of them and they started talking.

“We spoke for two hours that first conversation. We broke more than ice, we just kept on talking,” he says.

Arlene said she found that they both had a lot of things in common.

The fact that they both enjoyed music was a binding force and being a musician, he took time out to show her the ropes. Initially, she would go to see him some evenings to plan fund-raising activities for her school and to top up on her music skills, but the meeting grew to be much more over time.

“After a month or so, I couldn’t help myself. I found myself going back all the time because I always wanted to be in his company everytime. So sometimes I found myself not going for the music but for him,” she admits.

Today, Arlene says both of them are inseparable as they go everywhere together. Despite the fact that one of her legs has been amputated, limiting her movement; the couple still finds time to go out.

On those days when they are not out, they spend time watching movies at home or playing music.

“Sometimes I forget his challenges; that he is unable to see because we are so comfortable together. So I find that at times when we are watching movies, I will forget to explain what is happening to him,” she says.

Sidney celebrates his birthday today and the couple is already making plans that will take them back into the Valentines Day weekend.

And she is not perturbed that he won’t be able to see her all dressed up or how beautiful she is, and neither is he.

Over the years he has come to know her features. In fact, from their initial meeting, she had allowed him to feel her face to get an idea of what she looks like.

“He knows everything about my body, he knows when I am gaining weight and when I am taking it off,” she says.

Harris says seeing his wife is not vitally important to him. For him, the qualities that matter to him in a woman are not physical. These include trustworthiness and the fact that she is caring and honest. His wife, he says, has displayed these traits and so without seeing her physical beauty, he knows she is beautiful.