Today, I find myself stuck in the middle of chaos and cardboard. Why me, Lord? Looking around at scattered possessions all over the floor, the bed, in boxes, draping over boxes and things not yet touched, I wished for a match.

Instead of packing, I was sitting here in the middle of hell. What washed over me, stealing my scant amount of energy, was the voice of my mother during a move long ago. Why did the echoes of 1964-ish give me shivers?

I didn't want to move then. I want to go, now. But then, as with most things in my life during the time my mother lost her sight, there was no choice. I had lived in Alamogordo most of my 14 years, and since I was 12, life had changed for us all, completely. Mom was no longer a top-secret-clearance secretary in the space program, dad was transferring to Point Magoo, California, brother was in college in Texas, and Marisue and Mom, well, we were just there, caught somewhere between the comedian on stage, and wandering the halls of hell. Maybe that's why echoes are in the room, as I strive to pack a box. Just one box, is that too much to ask?

There. The telling of this story just revealed the reason for the echoes! Getting ready for this move has made me alternate between laughing hysterically at the enormous task ahead, and fearing the current halls of hell. I feel dark, as my mother must have, with all the life changes she was forced to make.

Frankly, other than the whispering echo of a newly blind mother's request, I have almost no memory of that move. It's a complete blank to me, one that I've never seen the need to seek therapy for, but it's odd that it's blank. I remember only small pieces, as if I were 5 instead of 14.

I know her request changed my life, then, and influences me now. It was a simple request, softly spoken, yet opened a door that neither of us could ever close. We became quite skilled, creating a rhythmic vocal dual, voices that were musical. It was a strange duet, one that could not be duplicated even if someone chose to do so. It was ours, ours alone.

I loved it, yet every moment of that intense love for the skill, was filled with the dread that it had become necessary.

The grief was heavy for a girl of 14. A girl who just wanted to have fun, to flirt, to dance, to create, to write, to dream. I didn't dwell on those feelings, they were fleeting moth-like flutters of thought, sprinkling glitter occasionally on a dismal day.

No, living the request was a fulltime task. There was no time for self-pity. I think if Mom had known, or could have helped it in any way, she would not have asked. She grieved for my missed childhood. Wisdom now, has taught me that it was not missed. It was there, just different than some. Into that childhood, those pre-teen and teen years, was woven an understanding, gradually, of need. Need. When you think about that, not many understand it, certainly not as a young teen, who barely tolerates sharing and giving at all.

I understood need in the context of it being someone else's. It wasn't that I sacrificed everything, nor was I a hero. I was just there, answering a request, that turned into a lifestyle. I could have gone another direction. Or, maybe not, as I think about it no, I went the only direction I saw. Straight down the road in front of me, one step after another, living the request that changed me, and sustained my mother.

If I had rebellion, it dissolved into my pillow at night, tangled with the absorption of tears of frustration and exhaustion. Hello, insomnia. The request caused me to think more than I ever wanted to, the quest for words became a mission. Why?

The car was quite, the soft whir of road noise becoming normal and almost unheard with every mile. Dad's winks in my direction were answered with my small smiles. They, too, would become the norm. Dad and I developed a sign language almost felt before seen. It carried some guilt, as we communicated about things behind Mom's back, right in front of her eyes.

Oh, I know it sounds rude, but sometimes we had to say things we did not want her newly sharp ears to hear. The pauses had to be brief, because she was on top of the meaning of silence, picking up on swishes and anything remotely resembling a whisper. I would learn how to communicate in silence, and change entirely the way I spoke.

So, we traveled on towards California and a new life. At first, we were uncomfortable, awkward, sad. Our attempts to sing once familiar and fun songs as though we were on a vacation were lame. Silence ticked by loudly; grief filled the car, sucking the breath out of our lungs. We were going to be near doctors for Mom, a new job assignment of tracking Russian subs for Dad, and a new everything for me. I left Marisue, the only one I knew, in New Mexico. Being "born again" was not so hot. But, then, I don't think Mom liked her darkness and any misery my dad and I felt, was weak by comparison. There was always that.

The silence became unbearable. And so, was born, the request.

"Marisue." Mom sat in the front seat, staring at nothing. There was nothing for her to see.

I sat upright sharply. She had not spoken for hours. "Mom?"

My heart pounded, something was different. Desperation was in that soft expression of my name. I can hear her "Marisue?" even now, lifting the .."sue" part every so slightly in tone. That way of saying my name, would be repeated over the next years, and it created a stab of adrenalin in my stomach every single time.

I waited.

"Tell me." she said, simply. She did not say it to dad, and he never did it the way I did.

"Tell you what, Mom." I replied, hesitantly.

"Tell me what you see." she requested. It changed my life.

It began. The door of change crashed open, roles were re-defined. I became a woman of words. Descriptions, awkward, flowed from my mouth, as I looked around, almost crying. "We're on a road that is growing dark, the white dashes in the middle of the road look like smears of paint someone spilled as they drove down the road. There's grass that needs to be mowed. Brown and gray and green, no houses nearby, only lights far in the distance, so there must be people, somewhere."

"What are they doing?" she asked.

"Mom, I'm not superman, I can't see inside their houses."

"What do you think they're doing?" she insisted. That, too, would become a norm, her demand for more information intense, always a fever-pitch thirst.

"Well, they're probably eating, which reminds me I'm hungry." Dad responded by saying, "Next stop, burgers!"

It seems a small change, that request for me to speak, but with those five words, I became her eyes. During those 4 days of traveling, to places we did not want to be, doing things we did not want to do, living a life we did not want to live, I learned to put all things seen into all words known.

Sarcasm was our friend, partnered laughter our style, silent language between my father and me our salvation, secret understandings and expressions of life between my mom and me, our habit. O, look out world, we were in its face.

That expression of emotion, that description of every single thing in vision's range, has become a lifestyle, defining who the Marisue is that packs the boxes that will go in the car that will drive us down the road once more of a new life, both dreaded and welcomed.

There will be more to tell about what was born from a simple request of a blind woman who wanted to see, even if from the eyes of her daughter. Oh yes, there are stories ahead; it seems that while I'm packing boxes for Oklahoma, I'm diggin' up bones in California.

"Tell me what you see,,,"