Flash's Story

My husband Murray and I are now teaching a braille transcribing class at a women’s correction facility.

This is not for people who are visually impaired, but to train students to produce braille books and other documents for those who do need to read braille.

Braille transcribing is much harder to learn than braille reading. I found this out when I took the transcribing class, after I’d been a braille reader for nearly forty years.

Transcribing has many rules about how to use and not use the different braille symbols, formatting the documents, much more. It is a tough course, and Murray and I appreciate how hard the women in our class are working to accomplish this difficult skill.

Part of what I do is come up with lessons to practice transcribing skills, as well as actual braille documents for the students to read, in order to practice proofreading.

Brailling out these reading practices is a challenge for me. The braille writer I use is similar to a manual typewriter. If I make a mistake toward the end of the page, I have to do the whole page over. I am so tempted to scratch out the mistake and explain it to them, but I want to encourage them to make their documents as perfect as possible.

So, yes, I have started many pages over. I also have to make sure not to use symbols which they haven’t learned yet. All this helps me appreciate the effort the women are putting into their work.

This week my reading practice lesson ended up being a story about my Mom’s dog, Flash. Next time I see Flash, I need to thank him for giving me material for a lesson.

Flash is the name of my mother’s dog.

His favorite day is Sunday because my brother Rodney brings treats.

When Mom leaves the house she says, “Flash, stay here; you’re in charge.”

The cats know now that Flash is old, he won’t eat their food.

When he was younger, he used to jump on everyone who came near.

Sometimes he ran so fast to jump on Mom, she feared he might knock her down.

He still takes his work seriously and barks every time we drive up.

My brother Jim gave Flash to my father as a puppy, and he brought Daddy joy for many days.

Those are some sweet memories I have, thinking of Daddy with his dog.

Mom never has been a real pet lover. “Dogs and cats need to stay out of the house,” she said. But I know she likes going out on the front porch to talk to old Flash.

This House Needs a Cat

Last month, we had to put our kitty Esther, 18 years old, to sleep. It was a tough decision, but the right one.

I felt like a fool when I sobbed in front of the people at the veterinary clinic. But she’d been with us sixteen years. That’s a long time.

It was really hard the first days after. I sat in my work (easy) chair with my computer, and I expected her to crawl on my lap. I went upstairs and into our room, and thought I’d hear her announcing she’s hungry. I’d lie in bed at night, and was sure I felt her climbing on to snuggle down by my face.

I thank God for this gift, and I hope I’ll have happy memories for a long time.

But we needed another kitty to love.

A couple weeks ago, we went back to the Animal Protection League, the same place we got Esther sixteen years ago. This time we came home with Eli, (Sarah named him) a seven-month-old black and white kitty with big feet. If you can catch him, he is a soft, sweet bundle with a loud, rattling purr.

That’s not easy to do.

He’s crazy. He runs and jumps and streaks through the house.

The first day he was home, Sarah saw him balanced on his back feet on a window ledge, batting at a moving tree limb on the other side of the window. He’s only knocked down three curtains so far. One of his favorite games is grabbing my hand with all four paws and chewing.

He climbed into an open dresser drawer, crawled behind the drawer into the back of the dresser, and hid. He leaps from the bed to grab at the chain for the ceiling fan.

He likes Caleb and visits his room often, even though Caleb is the one who has the scary dog, also named Esther. Eli and Esther are still figuring out their relationship. Mostly Eli avoids our dog, although Esther did chase him in the basement one day.

Sarah loves him, but she doesn’t want him to get in her room while she’s not there. She has breakable items which he likes to jump around and explore.

She’s smart about this concern. Eli knocked one of my talking clocks on the floor and broke it. I’ve told him if he’d let me catch and love on him more often, I’ll be more likely to forgive him for that.

He’s quite a different character than our precious old-lady kitty, who loved to snuggle and curl up on my lap. But he has brought much pleasure into our home.