I have had a friend for almost 30 years. We have met 7 times over the course of those years. When you get past about 15 years friends become family, although some of them graduate long before then. He is very definitely family now.

This morning he had his second cataract surgery. A week ago he was “too blind to drive”, today he can read fine print again.

He sees the world now through lenses that were chosen for him, to give him the best chance at doing his best for as long as they last him, or as long as he lasts them.

3 years ago I made a decision to see The Boy through a different lens. I had been looking at him and seeing that he was a list of negative words, words that influenced how I thought about him, what sort of future I saw for him. The change was to seeing him through the lens of “Humans do well when they can”. At any given moment he is doing as well as he can. Admittedly, sometimes “as well as he can” looks dreadful, but it is always as well as he can.

I don’t remember the hour or the day that that new lens slotted into place permanently. Sometimes the lens gets a little foggy, similar to when glasses wearers come in out of the cold and their glasses get all steamed up, but I wipe it clean and we are back to where we belong. I know most of the people around me didn’t have that lens change, and as a result don’t see him the way I do, but I cannot change other people and so I will continue to model what I believe is a good way to see the people in my life.

It does lead me to wonder what lens people do see him through. Do they see the kid he is now, looking through today’s uninfluenced lens? Do they see him through the lens of his past wrong doings? Do they still hold the same opinion of him now that they formed then?

This occupies more of my mental energy than I would like it to. I worry that he will, for some people, be forever tarred with the same brush, that they will never get to see the wonderful human being he is growing into.