I promised I’d give an outline of each chapter in the book, so let’s continue.
You find out about the red door in chapter three of ‘Beyond the Red Door’.
I met the red door when I was about eight years old. I’d just been transferred to a school for the blind to learn braille, because the doctors thought I’d go blind very early on in my life. The first thing I saw at the school was this red door. It spoke of a warning to me, indicated somehow that the route I wanted to take in life was barred. It was a challenge.
And I took up the challenge. That’s where the rebel in me came out, where I learned to stand up for myself and maintain my identity. I wasn’t about to change who I was and no-one could tell me otherwise.
It was during this time that I discovered that I could only see out of one eye. Before that, nothing had fazed me. But realising that half my world was ‘missing’ came as a huge shock. Why did this happen? Purely because I was at this school and had been told that I was there because I couldn’t see very well, that I was legally blind.
It’s one of those sad ‘we know best’ stories that are dotted throughout history, the well-meaning experts who actually can cause more harm than good. As a child, I could only do what was within my powers to survive. What lay ahead was beyond my control.