From Eagle to Chicken and Back

            Since my twenty-third birthday I have been totally blind.  I have been learning how to live as an independent blind person.  Sometimes I come face to face with my blindness and realize that there are things that I cannot do.  Other times I know that my blindness makes me capable of doing much that people with vision cannot do.  I am constantly learning that there are definite limitations that cannot be changed.  Other times I know that my blindness gives me a definite advantage in being able to see beyond and experience that which lives within.  Sometimes I feel that my blindness and my diabetes are frustrating losses.  Other times I choose to make these disabilities a unique gift given to me as tools for my life.  I choose to call them a gift.  The gift is that I am able to use my disabilities as an insight to see beyond the first impressions that people present and discover the real person that lives within.

            I am a blind diabetic.  I am blind because of my diabetes.  Since the age of 7 I have learned how to live with my diabetes.  Sometimes I would test my own limitations and fail miserably.  Other times I have discovered how to create effective new habits that help me. 

            This collection of short stories, reflections, and thoughts are about the experiences.  When I first lost my sight I started spending lots of time journalizing my thoughts, reflections, and memories on an old manual typewriter that had gotten me through college.  It was something to do while I waited.  I was spending a lot of time waiting, wondering, and searching for questions and answers why these two disabling diseases were happening in me.  The stories became one of the ways I could deal with all of the changes taking place within an extremely short period of time.  Some close friends had the opportunity to experience me through my journal as they now began reading the many entries back to me.  These friends encouraged me to continue writing and to think about perhaps sharing my journal with others.  As you will find English and Grammar are not my strong suits but the seed was planted and the idea grew.  In the early stages of writing I retired not only my college manual typewriter but a second used manual and a third small electric typewriter before receiving a beautiful commercial style electric that would assist me through my seminary career and my long excessive journaling moods.  Then I graduated to a talking computer and suddenly my journal comes to life!  The idea of organizing my journal into a book to share with others blossomed into a real concept. 

            The concept of this book continued to grow yet it lacked a purpose, a reason for wanting to share my story with others.  My journal was a loose-leaf notebook.  Some of the entries were clipped into the binder while others were stuffed into the pocket flaps.  I struggled with finding a purpose for this book.  Then I shared an experience leading a workshop for over two hundred Youth at the 1984 national Youth Event of the United Church of Christ.  During the encounter within the workshops the purpose for this book happened.  When I agreed to do the two workshops I was told that I would have about twenty-five participants in each session.  The first session had over one hundred and twenty-five!  I thought I was in the wrong room.  The second session was about the same number.  The participants were identifying me and my guide dog Babe as someone that was dealing with difficulties in life and being successful.  The topic for the workshop was dealing with relationships.  There was a connection between the way we participate in our relationships be it between ourselves with ourselves, with other people, and with God.  They were dealing with handicaps and disabilities just as I was.  Through many countless hours of dialogue after the workshops the purpose for this book was clear.  If perhaps by chance I could help even just one other person experience their own successes and frustrations as a part of the relational circle of life by sharing my story then this collection of stories, reflections, and thoughts would be well worth the effort of organizing them into book form. 

            As I began to organize and re-write some of the entries I found my story filled with laughter, humor, and celebration.  This is the optimistic part of me.  At other times I found myself crying and filled with sorrow as I experienced and remembered the pain that sometimes happens in life.  I kept discovering a familiar fraternal value that "I am only as strong as I am when I am at my weakest moment."  My story is complex yet simple.