Dylan Thomas' advice is open to questions: "Do not go gentle into that good night," he said. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
I've been raging like crazy, but the light keeps dying and I can't see a big bullseye target on a barn door. With all the raging, I have less than 10 percent of normal eyesight, which makes legally blind.
Here are a few of the things that keep me raging.
At the top of my list is dependence on others to drive my wife and me on social occasions with other couples. Especially in bad weather. For decades I was the designated driver. In blizzards, I was the one who tossed a shovel and broom into the car trunk and picked up and delivered my guests. Now my wife and I are the perpetual passengers, dependent on friends and cabs. We are in mourning for our beloved family car and independence.
I rage at the Big Slowdown. It takes as long now to decipher a newspaper headline or sub-head with a magnifying glass as it used to take to speed-read an entire page of newspaper stories. On a short walk, I slow my pace to avoid collision because my sight is limited to only a few steps.
I rage at having to wait for my busy wife or secretary to read to me the tiny-type message labeled large on the outside URGENT/IMPORTANT or ACTION ALERT, which almost every mailing claims to be and few are.
I rage at the movies where sound effects tell me that exciting things are happening on the screen which is only a gray blur.
I rage against losing the facial features of our two beautiful grandchildren, but I seem to be acquiring a sharper sense of "hearing" their visible expressions.
As sight deteriorates, other senses of touch, small and taste seem to sharpen a bit from greater use and dependency. But footsteps falter without visual guidance and obstacles loom up at the last moment before collision.
I rage at the stinginess of creditors whose faded bills are so lightly printed that amount due cannot be found or deciphered under the strongest magnifying glass.
The bustling supermarket, which used to be fun to visit, has become a bedlam of avoiding cart-crashes, overshooting aisles with unseen numbers and peering at unidentifiable packages with illegible labels. I hate imposing on a good-hearted friend to read and lead us through the chaos. It's enough, Mr. Thomas, to keep anyone raging.
After a lifetime of activity in various organizations -- and still participating in meetings -- I cannot recognize old colleagues who greet me. I have to ask, "Who are you?"
I try to conceal my rage with a benign smile that I wear constantly on social occasions, so that the uncomprehending will not get the idea that they are being slighted.
Even so, there is enraging confusion. A couple came up to me recently and when I asked the man "Who are you?" he replied, "Bill and Suzy." Then, sensing my plight, Bill added their last name.
And how's this for raging against the dying of the light? At a popular restaurant buffet, I was carrying two plates of food through the crowd in the dimly lighted ambiance toward our table. Suddenly, a person appeared to be standing in front of me motionless. I politely asked if I could get by. No response. I repeated the request, less politely. Still no response. Finally, Mr. Thomas, I let him have it. When the figure failed to move, I realized that I was berating my own image in a narrow mirror on a column.
It is disconcerting -- and a bit surprising -- when I look in the mirror and no one is there. It's a habit when shaving. But, since I use an electric shaver now instead of a razor, who needs a reflection anyway?
Worse than losing one's image in the mirror is losing so much of the city one loves and grew up in. I had become somewhat accustomed to the vanishing of the Emerson and Rennert hotels, the Hearst Tower Building in whose penthouse we had offices for many years, the old Sun Building at the center of town, the Post Office, the National Exchange Bank and the yellow McCormick Building that marked the beginning and end of happy excursion trips down the bay. I miss the buildings that are long gone, but now I'm missing those that are still there, because I can't read the signs.
These drive me to rage: Invisible (to me) men's-room signs, restaurant menus, traffic signals, entrance, exit and elevator signs, floor numbers, directions on bottles and jars (especially how to open them).
I hide annoyance with well-meaning friends who offer vitamins, advice, nostrums and magnifying lenses, and who cannot understand that there is nothing deader than a dead optic nerve.
But, what I can see, more clearly than ever, is the goodness of individuals. In the readiness of relatives, co-workers and friends to offer help immediately when they sense the need; in the caring patience of volunteers who read to me beyond weariness; in the generosity of such institutions as the Maryland School for the Blind which provide cassettes, disks and playback, I am heartened to rediscover what we are losing in public life:
The capacity to see things through the other fellow's eyes.
As Anne Frank said, "In spite of everything, I believe that people are really good."
That's enough to quiet the useless raging and to ease the passage into the good night.
Jack L. Levin is a Baltimore businessman.