People constantly give me funny looks when I mention that my mother is disabled, so I often have to explain. No, she is not in a wheelchair. No, she does not have to use crutches. Yes, she's basically fine. Her disability is not visible. Yes, that is surprising. My mother has an incurable neurodegenerative eye disease known as Retinitis Pigmentosa, RP for short. (Side note: this is not the same thing as Macular Degeneration, so for the many people who think she has this, she does not.)

RP runs in our family. My grandfather has it, as does my aunt, uncle, cousin, brother, and technically me. Generally, what having this eye disease means, is that you're going to go blind, either slowly or rapidly. In scientific terms, as the cones (color sight) in your eyes begin to mutate, the rods (night vision) in your eyes will deteriorate. What losing the rods in your eyes means is that this disease will start with night blindness, leading to loss of peripheral vision, and eventually, complete blindness.

While I could talk about the fact that because of this disease my mom could not drive at night; if a sport practice, game, or any other activity went past daylight hours, she couldn't pick me up. I could talk about how when I was 15 we got into a minor (and by minor I mean little to no damage) car accident that made her decide to stop driving completely because she knew her peripheral vision was waning and the effect that that had on me because she could no longer drive me to school, the mall, doctors appointments or anywhere else. I could talk about how this eye disease was passed on to me (albeit, an abnormal and therefore acute and minor strand of it) and how upset that makes me. However, I refuse to focus on the negatives of this, even though there are a lot, because there's no point in letting things you can't change get you down.

Instead of focusing on the negatives, I'm going to focus on the honestly lucky positives. Yes, so my mother could never drive me anywhere when it was dark outside, but I am lucky to have a great father who could do this and friends' parents who were more than willing to help out. Yeah, my mom had to stop driving when I was 15, yet this age of mine was actually a very good time for it to happen. I had gotten my learner's permit, so while my mom couldn't drive me to the mall or doctor's appointments or anywhere else, I could drive myself (as long as she was in the car with me). For those questioning the legality of this, she still had a valid drivers license even though she was no longer making use of it. While this disease was passed on to me, it's practically dormant in my eyes so it is not affecting me the same way it affects my mom or anyone else who had RP in my family (at least, this is the case so far).

Another aspect that I do consider positive is that I truly believe everything that she has been forced to give up like driving, her job, etc., because of this disease is that we really have become so close. I love spending time with my mom and, obviously, she feels the same about me.

My mom was declared disabled by the Social Security Administration in 2014. This was after she retired from her job as a preschool aid, after she stopped driving. Her vision was deteriorating and while it is not yet completely gone, it continues to get worse. However, despite this, despite every crappy thing that has happened to her, myself, and the rest of my family because of RP, she continues to be the best mom anyone could ask for. She does little things like send me themed care packages in the mail; for example one was orange themed and another snow themed. She'll listen to speeches or presentations that I have to give in classes before I give them. She makes the best sugar cookies in the world and other more creative desserts. She cooks dinner for my family almost every night, and she'll attempt to make my favorites whenever I'm home.

Who she is and what she does for me, my dad, and my brother has not changed because her vision is severely affected. She continues to be the most amazing person and someone who I look up to, in terms of both kindness and the extreme sass she supplies. Between the two of us, we try to be positive, which can be very difficult sometimes, however we know that while our situation may suck at times, it could be much, much worse and I am thankful for that each day.