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Landon Valentine was seventeen years old. On the outside he looked like a normal guy. He would go to the park to enjoy the fresh air, and he would play with his older brother. From looking at him, nobody could tell there was anything wrong. But if you were to go up close to him you would find that his stare would look beyond you. The truth was that he was blind. When he was about four years of age, his parents were driving in the night back home, with Landon in the car, when out of nowhere a giant monster looking truck slammed into their small Sedan. The car flipped over and Landon hit his head on the metal that was slowly caving him and his family in. In the accident, his father died but he and his mother survived. Later at the hospital, his mother was told that there was going be a possibility that the trauma caused to the head would cause blindness in the child. And in effect, it did.
He lost it slowly. First, losing a quarter of his vision field then half, then three quarters, then all of it. His mother was there by his side all of the time. He couldn't see but he remembered everything he had seen. There was nothing he could do. His vision was lost and he would never get it back. He hated that he couldn't see anything. All he saw was pitch darkness. It would have been better if he at least could see shadows. At least then he could distinguish one thing from the other.
Every once in a while, he would turn to his mother and asked her, "Why did God let this happen to me, Mama?" His mother was a Catholic Mexican woman and she thought it was right for her children to believe in God too. She out of all people knew that God was real. It was him who had saved Landon when he was in her womb. It was Him who was helping her cope with her husband's death.
"Hijo," she responded. " Everything God does is for a reason. Sure you can't see anything now but you can use your other senses as your tools to see. Those things you took for granted when you could see are the very things that are helping you now. Besides there is one thing that you could do now that you couldn't do when you could see."
"And what is that Mama?"
"You can see with the eyes of the heart and the soul. Having that, you don't need anything else. You can tell who's a good person and who's not. You can see who you can trust and who you can't."
"Oh...okay." A young Landon had answered to his mother, not knowing what she meant.
"You'll understand it when you're older, Landon. Believe me, you will."
"Okay."
At school, he now had to have someone to help him do what all the other kids did. He had to get accustomed to having someone help him out most of the time. Over the years, Landon realized that his other senses were getting stronger. He could distinguish when different people walked into the room or walked past him just by the way they smelled. For example, his mother smelled like fruit, strawberry kiwi to be exact. His brother smelled of grass and dirt. Each person smelled different than the others. He could also make the distinction between peoples' voices. It was amazing how he had learned so much. But the thing that he had learned to do that he could never do before was seeing with the eyes of the heart and soul. He couldn't see their features but he could tell if they had a good heart or if they had a bad one. He finally understood what his mother was trying to say. Now that he was a junior he knew mostly everyone but they didn't want to know him. school hadn't started yet but he was ready.
Landon had beautiful jade green eyes and he had a light tan. He had brown loose hair and a refined nose. He was strong and of tall build. He would work out with his brother every day. He was one of the sweetest guys around. His smile was the most comforting and most loving smile ever. He cared for everyone even when they didn't care for him. He gave the people he loved everything he could offer. He had learned to be by himself. He had memorized the number of steps it took from one place to another. He was a smart guy and the world didn't want to see that.
Outside when he would rest from the workout he would listen to the couples pass by. He longed for that. Every night he would dream that he had met a girl and he would be happy. But when he woke up, he realized it was only a dream. He wanted to find love, the kind that he saw in his mother and his father when he was young. He wanted to love someone and protect her. But all the girls around him only saw him as a monster because he couldn't see. He was treated differently because he was blind but he was just like anybody else. He had feelings too. At night he would pray and for the first time in a while he ended it with a noble plea :
Please virgencita I ask you to help me. I don't complain much but you know me. Help me find a girl who will love me for me, someone who won't mind my blindness and who will let me love her. Please. It is all I ask. Amen.
With that he went to sleep, not knowing that his prayer would be answered.