Someone turn on the light, please?

Our lives are filled with great and unforgettable moments. Talk about all of them in just 3000 characters is an impossible achievement. Then I will bring the most striking of all moments, the moment of darkness; yes, darkness was the most memorable moment of my life.

Since I was 7 years old I have to suffered from an eye problem, or rather, several. I went through medical appointments almost every week and doctors never found the solution to my medical condition. Time passed and the situation only got worse. My humble family, hit rock bottom because of the expensive medications, tests, and treatments I needed to pay for my health to be preserved. However, even with so much spending, I never got a cure.

One day, when I woke up to go to school, I opened my eyes and … What? Where is the light? Did anyone turn off the light? … I couldn’t see anything. To my despair, I touched my eye and it was very limp. I cried a lot. After three days, I went to the doctor to try to understand the cause of my sudden blindness. The ophthalmologist said I had an occlusion retinal vein and if I went another day without seeking medical help, I certainly would be blind forever. However, on that same day, my vision was partially returning to normal.

A week later I went back to the doctor for a follow up. The doctor told me, staring into my eyes that I was a true miracle because he did not know how the vision came back that fast. He even said that wherever I go, I should tell this story as a way of telling people that there is always a light that will come to them, just as it came to me.

I recently went through a depressive episode, even thinking about suicide, but I remembered that there is always a light yes, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the light is a small firefly.

Many people begin to discredit life in times of darkness. They start walking like pilgrims on a cold, foggy night. I l also act like that, sometimes. But then I remember everything I went through and I see that it is not worth giving up, but looking for the switch to turn on the light. Just like before turning on the light there is a short circuit, a power outage, or something like that. With that, I want to continue being the light switch for other people, encouraging them to never stop shining.

This essay was written for Globalizando’s Writing Contest by Anderson Ferreira and received an Honorable Mention.