A Dyslexic Dream

I heard about dyslexia a lot especially when I watched American tv shows and movies. Yet I never really knew what kind of illness it was until I read something about it in the book, Chicken Soup for the Soul. There, I read about a man who possessed the illness. He found it so hard to read because the letters were jumbled. Yes, the normal people see this word, beautiful, but for a dyslexic person, it could be like this, beufluiat. Depressing, right?

photo source: here

So earlier, I had a dream. And I call  it a dyslexic dream because I became a dyslexic. There were other two people in my dream. They were my elementary crush and his mother. His mother asked me to read a passage in the Bible. Unfortunately, I can't. Why? I saw words like these: lkeis huest achesdor. How could I possibly utter them? It was embarrassing. I told them that my Bible had  lots of typographical errors and she let me borrow hers. But then, I still can't read. It was a realization that it was not because of the book but because of me, of my abnormal perception. One funny thing about the dream was that I later on told them that I guessed I had a reading problem. I forgot the word dyslexia and I said I had schizophrenia. (Schizophrenia?? Baliw ang peg?) It was then when I woke up that I remember the correct word.

While I was in the dream, I knew that it wasn't real. Still, I was able to feel the frustration of a dyslexic person. If I know, they are judged as dull, dumb and stupid. What else others would react to someone who couldn't read correctly such a simple word like 'banana'? But it's not their fault, they were born to carry that disability. And they have no choice but face every bully that they get because of that undeserved illness.

This reminds me of my fourth year high school classmate, who at that time made us annoyed because she couldn't read. Yes, she reached that level without even knowing how to read. And it is now that I think that maybe she has a dyslexia too. I remember, our teacher would call her in class to read a paragraph. I would be really pissed when she would utter president instead of presentation. Most of the time, she could read the first syllable right but the next ones were always wrong. It was as if she was just guessing. In my mind, I would tell her, "Keep on reading until the last syllable and stop guessing". But as I see it now, I really think that she has a dyslexia. By the way, she stopped going to school. She never graduated with us. We really did not know the exact reason why she left her education. We could just assume that the major reason was she got frustrated by her inability to read, especially when every meeting our teacher would remind her of it since she would be constantly called to read in our class.

Wherever she is right now, I hope that she's doing great. And I want her to know that I am deeply sorry for being such a bad, judgmental classmate I was before. If ever she really has a dyslexia, I hope that she'd keep on believing that she will overcome it one of these days because it really is possible to eliminate the disability. The man in the Chicken Soup has overcome it through persistence and patience, and so can she. :)