A New Vision

By Sue Wiygul Martin

Fifteen years ago I could never have conceived that life could be as it is now. First, I am alive. And I share that life with my friend and partner, Jim. When we were first married we lived in a big old farm house in Tennessee. It was located in a hollow of the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau.

The wind sang through the trees on the hills around the house and a stream gurgled its way through the front yard when it rained. We enjoyed many hikes in the woods around the house and a huge garden kept us busy in the summer. In 1987, we moved to Maine to pursue our careers with a private agency. We moved into a converted barn overlooking the ocean. In Maine, we have taken up skiing and have enjoyed many hikes and bicycle trips along the coast.

That I could live a life such as this would have seemed unbelievable to me on a day in December, 1982, as I lay in a hospital bed. On that day, I faced the reality that I was, from that point on, going to be blind. I was so thankful at first, simply to be alive, that the fact that I could no longer see did not have its full impact on me until I went home after three weeks in the hospital. Then the business of living descended on me with crushing reality. I had to get on with my life and I didn't know how.

Since neither I nor anyone in my family had ever had contact with someone who was blind, we immediately began asking where to turn and how to get help. The state agency responsible for rehabilitation services sent a rehabilitation teacher to my home to work with me. Her name was Vera. Vera had been blind for many years. She was extremely capable, and blindness didn't seem to bother her in the least. She described to me how she had gone to graduate school, traveled in Europe, and lived alone. At first, I was intimidated by this fine lady for whom blindness seemed no limitation at all.

Vera was patient with me, sometimes just letting me talk and ask questions. Gradually, she began teaching me the skills I needed for living independently. As I gained confidence, I was able to realize that if there was a task I needed to do in order to live independently there was probably an adaptive way to do it. The skills I learned included Braille, adaptive ways to cook, clean, label clothing, and shop for groceries. I also learned that the cassette tape recorder, the typewriter, and later, talking computers were going to be of great importance to me.

All of this took time though. In the early days of my blindness everything was overwhelming. At that point, I was having trouble simply walking down the hall of our home. This brought up a major question. How was I going to get around? I was told that I should contact an orientation and mobility specialist. This was how I met Jeff. Jeff's job was to teach me to travel safely on foot, using my other senses and a long cane. For me, Jeff did this job beautifully.

My mobility lessons gave me not only essential skills, they also gave me the opportunity to begin easing gradually back into contact with others outside of my family. Having had no contact with a blind person before the onset of my own blindness, I had no idea of some of the attitudes that I was to encounter. I'm sure there were and are many people who take no notice of a blind person going about his or her business using a cane. Aside from this attitude of acceptance, there seemed to be two other kinds of reactions. Sometimes, as I walked down the sidewalk with my cane, the sounds of footsteps and voices around me would simply die away. I felt very self-conscious and "watched"… At other times, it seemed that I received more offers of help than one person could ever use.

I recall one incident which was fairly typical. In order for a cane traveler to cross a street, one of the first things that he or she must do is establish alignment so that the crossing will be straight. There are several ways to accomplish this. One way is to line up with feet and cane perpendicular to the curb which the person is leaving. This is not always dependable however, as there are few perfectly symmetrical curbs. The best way is to listen to traffic and line up with that which is moving parallel to the direction of the crossing. This takes a lot of practice. I remember, at the beginning of my training, standing at a curb listening intently to the traffic and trying to get my alignment before crossing. I finally had it. I planted my feet and waited for the next traffic surge indicating that it was safe to cross. Just at that point, someone who apparently mistook my look of intense concentration for one of intense confusion grabbed my arm, turned me around and said, "May I help you?" All I could think of to say was, "Yes, you can put me back where you found me."

There were a number of incidents like that. Mainly, though, orientation and mobility training, was for me, a very exciting experience. I was learning that I was not the helpless person that I had supposed. There were victories. One was the "drop off lesson". This was the lesson in which Jeff-drove me around until I was totally lost, and then let me out of the car and told me that he would meet me in another part of town. He also told me which bus to take, and where to catch it but that was all. I put everything I had learned into action and it all worked perfectly.

I learned that there is far more to cane travel than just getting from point A to point B. I learned to handle my cane gracefully as well as effectively. I learned how to solicit and refuse assistance. I even learned to orient myself to a shopping mall by asking the right questions and using my cane skills.

There was something else that Jeff and Vera did for me that was even more important, and continues to be. Learning the skills necessary to cope with life as a blind person is only one part of the adjustment. Emotionally, I was facing tremendous loss. I was depressed. I couldn't decide in my mind how to view myself any longer. I had no self concept. Instinctively, I knew that my old way of life was gone, but that was all I felt, loss. Then Jeff and Vera both shared with me the writings and ideas of Father Thomas Carroll. Father Carroll wrote a book entitled, "Blindness: What it is, What it Does, and How to Live with It." Father Carroll's idea is that an adult who loses his sight must die to that sighted life. He can then be reborn to life as a blind person. There is a paradox here. The new person, the blind person, can be that same person he was before loss of sight, but only if he is willing to undergo death to sight.

When Jeff and Vera told me about Father Carroll, it was as though a new direction for life lay open to me. The death and rebirth motif was certainly nothing new to me. It forms an integral part of many spiritual and temporal philosophies. For example, the death and resurrection of Christ which provides mankind with a means for salvation and grace, and the Native American culture so closely aligned with the cyclical death and rebirth of the natural world. Although familiar, the concept of death and rebirth had been largely academic for me. Now it began to have real and personal meaning. I was gradually able to see myself as a new and whole person rather than a disabled version of the person that I had been. I had a new vision of myself.

A lot has happened since my teachers told me about Father Carroll. I have indeed embarked on a new life. Jim and I will celebrate our thirteenth anniversary this summer and we continue our work in the field of blind rehabilitation. Our family has grown by one important member. She is a delightful two and a half year old with a cold nose. Beverly is my guide dog.

Jim knows how much Father Carroll's concepts have meant to me in my adjustment. Thus, along with teaching independent living skills, we try to communicate Father Carroll's ideas to our students when we feel that it is appropriate. It has become our goal through our work to assist others in the same manner in which Jeff and Vera assisted me in my adjustment to life with blindness.