Need To Care for Your Eyes
Papa Edosa had fixed radios for forty years. His workshop behind the market smelled of solder, old wood, and the dust that floated in every afternoon when the harmattan winds came. He could tell a faulty capacitor by sound alone. He could thread copper wire through a circuit board without his glasses.
But one morning, the thin lines on a transistor blurred into one. He squinted. He moved the board closer. The lines still danced.
“Old age,” his apprentice Tunde laughed. “You need rest, sir.”
Papa Edosa grunted and reached for his small lamp. The bulb was bright, but the glare made his eyes water. That night, his head pounded like a faulty transformer.
His wife found him rubbing his eyes at the table, the dinner she cooked going cold.
“When last did you check your eyes?” she asked, setting a steaming bowl in front of him.
“These eyes have seen children grow and customers return. They still work.”
She said nothing. The next day, she did not carry food into the workshop at noon. Instead, she walked in wearing her best buba, took his hand, and said, “Today, we go to the clinic.”
He wanted to argue. A man with waiting radios does not sit in waiting rooms. But her grip was firm, the same way it had been when they were young and she pulled him to dance at their wedding.
The eye doctor was a small woman with a bright torch. She asked him to read letters. He missed half. She put drops in his eyes that stung, then showed him a picture of the back of his eye.
“You have been straining,” she said. “Too much close work, too much glare, no rest. Your eyes are tired, not finished.”
She gave him three rules:
- The 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. 2. Light matters: Work with light behind you, not shining into your face. 3. Yearly checks: Eyes change, just like radios. You check them before they break.
She also gave him glasses. Not heavy ones, but light frames that made the transistor lines stand straight again.
That evening, Papa Edosa sat outside. The sun was setting, and for the first time in months, he could see each palm frond sharp against the orange sky. Tunde brought out a faulty radio.
“Shall I fix it, sir?”
“No,” Papa Edosa said, putting on his new glasses. “Let’s fix it. You watch the board. I’ll watch 20 feet away.”
He looked at the mango tree across the yard, counted to 20, and smiled. His wife, carrying a flask of tea, saw the smile and nodded to herself.
Some tools you can replace. The ones you were born with, you maintain.
And sometimes, care starts when someone else holds your hand and says, “Today, we go.”
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