MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
The Story of a Remarkable Life
and a Transcending Love

by
Joan Brock and Derek L. Gill



BOOK JACKET INFORMATION

This powerfully moving and inspiring book
describes the experiences of a remarkable young
woman who has faced an ordeal of personal
tragedy that would be the despair of most, but that she
managed to overcome.
Joan Brock was born and raised in what she
describes as a "serpentless, Californian
Eden." Lithe and blithe-spirited, she had considered a
career as a professional dancer. Instead she was
drawn to a more challenging vocation--teaching sightless
children in an Iowa school for the blind how to cope in the
visible world most of us take for granted.
There she fell in love withand married a
colleague, and, following the birth of a daughter,
life seemed "barely short of perfect." But
one winter day when Joan was in her early
thirties, fate began to turn against her--not
once but twice--delivering blows that might have
given most of us ample excuse to live out our
years in cringing self-pity, wondering, Why me?
Yet such a response would have been totally out of
character for this young woman. "Why not me?" has been
her reply, both then and now.
Armed with a combination of faith, courage, and
determination, Joan confronted her lot and carried
on. The story of how she did so is a
marvelously inspiring journey that will touch every
reader. Yet More Than Meets the Eye
goes far beyond being just another account of triumph
over tragedy. It is also a love story--one that
proclaims love of life, compassion for those most
in need of care, and, in a joyous ending,
romantic love as tender as its telling.

Early in her life JOAN BROCK
discovered her gift for public speaking, a talent
she has now developed into a professional career
as a much-in-demand motivational speaker both in the
United States and overseas. A graduate of the
University of South Dakota, she and her
husband and daughter live in Arizona.

DEREK L. GILL has authored or
coauthored a number of bestselling
biographies, including Dove and If You
Could See What I Hear, which have been made
into major movies. About his work on this book,
Gill says: "It has been the most
exhilarating experience of my professional
life." He and his wife live in Southern
California.

HarperCollins-Publishers

Praise for More Than
Meets the Eye

"A wonderful story of a woman's courage and
indomitable will to conquer misfortune. A moving and
true story of love and compassion that enables all of
us to see deep inside the mysteries of the human
heart."
--BARBARA GORDON, author of I'm
Dancing As Fast As I Can

"After being captured by the early chapters of
Joan Brock's story, I locked my door,
pulled out the telephone jack, and read it from
cover to cover. ... It is an absolutely
wonderful book."
--BETTY WHITE, star of The Golden
Girls, film, and stage

ALSO BY DEREK L. GILL

Dove
If You Could See What I Hear
(coauthor with Tom Sullivan)
Quest












To Joy and Jay
























In memoriam to Joe and my father

PICTURE CAPTIONS

Joe and I at our wedding, July 1978.
A Beringer family photo before the storm.
Jay, five and a half, Joy one and a half.
Joy and I at her fourth birthday in 1984
after my vision loss. Life goes on regardless
of challenges.
A reunion with my brothers, Bob and Jon,
in 1984 just after my vision loss.
Joy and I in Bakersfield on the
three-wheel bike giving our dog, Lady, a
ride.
Joy and I at my wedding to Jim in 1992.
--(kevin Fahey)
With Jim and Joy, June 1992. A
beautiful day to begin a happy new life.--
(kevin Fahey)
A Stuebbe family photo at Jim's and
my wedding in 1992. Flanking me (left
to right), my brother Jon, Mom and Dad, and
Bob.--(kevin Fahey)
Mom and Dad at the wedding.--(kevin
Fahey)
Jim and I on our wedding day.--(kevin
Fahey)
High school football star Jay Beringer,
fall 1993.
Joy caught me preparing our 1993
Thanksgiving dinner in our kitchen in Tucson--
just an ordinary mom.
Jim, Joy, and I in our backyard in
Tucson, fall 1992, a "pet" giant
swallowtail butterfly on Joy's cheek.
Joy and I with a four-legged friend, Christmas
1993. We both love to ride.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

Acknowledgments

In loving gratitude to Jim and my mother; also
Bob, Jon, my extended family, and Joe's
extended family. Thanks especially to Derek
Gill, Tom Sullivan, Elspeth
Nickerson, Bruce Gallaudet, Brenda
Peterson, and editor Buz Wyeth; the staff and
students of the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving
School; the physicians and other members of the
healing arts for their skill and care. How grateful
I am, too, for the love, laughter, shared tears,
and prayers of those special friends--they know who they
are--who have touched my life over both the darker
and the sun-filled times. Special thanks, too,
to Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Van Doorn and
Mr. and Mrs. Ron Lehr, whose generosity
helped me to write this book.
Above all, thanks to God for his "Amazing
Grace."



Introducing Joan

That I played a role in creating this book
gives me both extraordinary pleasure and
pride. For not only is it a story of compelling
drama--indeed many readers will ignore the clock
until they've traveled from cover to cover--but for
me (and here I speak as a musician) it is as
haunting as a love song.
Within one of the chapters Joan Brock speaks
of the time when I first encountered her. Very obviously,
as will be understood, we had, importantly, something
in common. However, I became aware immediately that this
lovely woman (and we'll speak of her beauty
momentarily) had a unique and enthralling story
to tell.
How many songs have died because the lyrics have not
melded with the music, and how many good tales have been
lost in the telling? After Joan had spoken to me
about the incredible experiences of her still young life,
I saw that her need was to find a professional who
could help her write from the heart as well as from the
head. Fortuitously, a best-selling author is
among the closest of my friends. Derek Gill
worked with me in telling the story of my boyhood and
early adult years.
As those old-time professional matchmakers
gained personal gratification from arranging an
ideal mating, so I now have my reward from being
instrumental in the prospering of this literary
partnership.
Thus Joan, with her wonderful personal
story, and Derek with his experienced pen, have created
a book which will, I believe, inspire many to dare
distant horizons which they might have thought to be beyond
their attainment, beyond their courage and faith. And
what challenging and exhilarating voyaging!
I have not seen Joan. Indeed, I've not seen
anyone or anything. My wife, Patty, and
others have told me that she is strikingly
beautiful. But I do know of her radiance which
illuminates the hearts of all who meet her.
The reader of More Than Meets the Eye will
also glow from Joan's inner radiance, and will be
reminded that in her own words, "not only darkness but
dawn" is also heralded by twilight.
Tom Sullivan




Winter's Twilight

Even had it not been the day before my
thirty-second birthday, I could never forget the
date. On awakening that morning I was quite unaware
that the compass of my life had begun to swing
radically.
I had a smidgen of concern about a slight
headache and a mild sense of lassitude. Oh
gosh! I thought, hope I'm not in for a cold--
oh, please, not in this weather.
After showering, I used the sleeve of my gown
to wipe steam from the bathroom window. This enabled me
to read the outside thermometer. It showed twenty
degrees below zero. I shivered and indulged in
covetous thoughts about California, where I had
grown up. I enjoyed recollected images of
palm trees and golden beaches. My husband,
Joe, was already downstairs and doubtless hungry for
breakfast.
I peeked through the door of Joy's room.
Our three-year-old was still asleep, her golden
hair spread across the pillow and her eyeless teddy
bear limply clasped above the covers.
Once I had gotten Joe out of the
house there would be time enough to stir and dress our
daughter.
Life for Joe and me was more than satisfying.
It was rewarding at the deepest level because both of
us really loved our professional work at the Iowa
Braille and Sight Saving School. Joe was the
director of leisure and recreational training and
I was responsible for liaison between dorm parents
and classroom teachers. I was also involved with the
school's public relations. Even when our
schedules overlapped, Joy was always close at
hand because her preschool classroom was on the
Braille School's campus. I cannot recall
contemplating the smallest shadow of worry about the
future.
The reason for Joe's early departure from
home that morning was that he went to a basketball
game with his friends before work. He would be back
to pick up Joy and me shortly after nine o'clock.
Joy and I had an unhurried pancake
breakfast and then it was time to get her dressed.
Our daughter was showing early sign of
independence. She bounced around her bedroom,
gathering a blouse here, pants there, underwear from under
her Cabbage Patch dolls (what on earth were
they doing there?), a padded snowsuit, a thick
scarf from behind the door. As usual, the business of
getting all these garments on her in the right order was
all squirms and squeaks. The task completed,
she looked like a brown-eyed stuffed doll who could
still move, but only barely. All she needed
to cope with the outside temperature was a cap with
earflaps and boots, both down in the hall, and
socks--ah, yes, socks!
I pulled out the second dresser drawer and
pursed my lips.
"Pumpkin, what's happened to your pink
socks?" I asked.
Joy waddled across to the dresser where she stood
on her toes. This allowed her to tip her nose
over the top of the opened drawer. Then she pointed.
"There they are, Mommy--there in the corner.
Lots of them."
I followed the direction of her finger. "But those
are white," I said.
An impatient sigh from Joy. "Oh,
Mommy, they're pink, pink, pink, like my
pants."
She could not quite reach the pair she was indicating so
I pulled them out myself. I studied them
closely. They were white. Joy went back to the
bed, her feet in the air waiting for me to put on
the selected socks. I went to the
Winnie-the-Pooh lamp and very slowly turned the
socks over in my hand. There was no trace of
color at all.
"What are you waiting for?" squeaked the stuffed
doll from the bed.
"I--er--are you sure these are pink?"
Another deep sigh from Joy. "Oh,
Mommy, don't be silly. You're going to make
me late for school."
I closed my eyes and rubbed them, then looked
again. The color hadn't changed. I swallowed.
Gnats of worry buzzed across my mind. This was
absurd. Maybe the incipient cold or my
sinuses are playing tricks on me, I thought.
Anyway, I heard the car in the driveway so
there was no time to argue further. By the time I had
Joy fully dressed, Joe was stomping the snow
off his boots at the kitchen door.
Joy leaped into his arms and in moments we were
on our way to the campus. Joe was aglow from his
exercise and murmured something about having dropped
nearly ten pounds in the past three weeks. Joe
was built like a refrigerator and was in a
permanent state of war with the bathroom scales.
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked. "Nearly
ten pounds!"
"Great," I responded without adequate
enthusiasm.
The brilliance of the snow dazzled my eyes.
"Something on your mind?" asked Joe.
The car was slowing for a stop sign. "Yes," I
said. "What color are Joy's socks?"
"For Pete's sake!" he exclaimed. "I
thought that at least you'd clogged the kitchen sink
again."
The car had stopped. "I'm serious," I said.
"Just check the color, please."
He glanced at me, his brow furrowed. Then
he swiveled around and asked Joy, in the
backseat, to lift her pants cuffs. Before
replying, he moved the car across the intersection.
Then, with mock gravity, he said: "The news
this morning is that the President is expected
to make an important new statement about the
Panama Canal. There was an airplane
hijacking in Greece. Another blizzard is
sweeping down from Canada." A pause.
"And our daughter is wearing a pair of pink
socks." He guffawed.
I didn't even smile as I felt another
small stab of concern.
The journey through the little town of Vinton was a
short one. The current joke was that the birth of
triplets to the Mifflin family had pushed the
population up over the five thousand mark.
Boastfully, it was the county seat and, at
Christmastime, folks drove in from places a
hundred miles away to see the tree-lined
streets and red-bricked public buildings
sparkling with lights. It was a community full of
friends, I mean that one was on first-name terms with the
mailman and the grocery clerks. Many folks
didn't even bother to lock their doors at
night, and the cops were more likely to wave
admonishing fingers than give tickets when they
caught you driving ten miles over the speed
limit. If you were down with the flu, neighbors
dropped in with an apple strudel and grandmother's
herbal potion. It was a community where church pews
were filled on Sunday and where people gave generously
of their time and treasure to worthwhile causes.
Vinton was just the right place for a school for blind
kids.
On my schedule for that day was an afternoon talk
to a women's association. I hoped to recruit
volunteers to help kids with one-on-one
assistance. I relished talking about "my kids"
and their special needs.
Joe, the powerfully built man at my side
whose secret ambition was to be a shooting guard in
the National Basketball Association, was
adored by the sightless children.
He stopped the car near Joy's preschool.
He leaned over and gave each of us a peck.
"Well, here we are, lover girl," he said
to Joy, and to me he said, "Good luck with your
presentation."
Joy and I gripped gloved hands to walk across
the street. A wintry sun was shining directly
at us and the snow was so bright that I made my eyes
into slits. Joy was prattling on about her friend,
Susie, when I suddenly lurched forward. I had
tripped over a curbside mound of snow.
"Oh, Mommy!" exclaimed Joy in alarm.
"Didn't you see it?"
"No, I guess I didn't," I said
breathlessly.
But a moment later I stumbled again.
I looked back. With the sunlight now behind me
I could clearly see why I had tripped because the
mounds of snow threw shadows onto the road.
Yet the moment I turned to move toward the
sunlight the landscape flattened out. It was quite
puzzling--but no more than that.
Before Joy and I parted at the preschool door
she more than compensated for my clumsiness and concern.
She looked up at me and said solemnly,
"Mommy, you look so pretty today." I gave
her a hug.
When I reached my own office, Joy's
heartwarming valediction was one reason I
bypassed my desk and made straight for the rest
room.
Looking back at me from the mirror was
certainly a face I recognized, except that
I looked so pale. Figuring that a little more blush
would correct the problem I pulled out my
compact. My hand froze between compact and cheek.
The blush looked like talcum powder.
I took the compact to the window, but the natural
light did not change the white color to a
roseate hue. I took several deep breaths.
There had to be an explanation. It was eerie. Was
it, I pondered, a sort of snow blindness--just a
temporary thing that inconvenienced the guys who
skied without darkened goggles? Wasn't the
treatment just a few hours in a dark room and
lots of orange juice? Something like that.
In heading for my office I passed the staff
secretary, Ione, at her desk. She gave
me her usual greeting, "Hi, Joan, how are
you today?"
I stopped and turned to her. "Well,
truthfully, not so hot," I said. "Think I'm
getting a cold. Do I look okay to you?"
Ione gave me a second glance. "Fine,"
she said, "except--well ..."
"Well, what?" I asked sharply.
She laughed with embarrassment. "You're wearing
enough makeup to play the clown at a children's party."
She whipped a tissue from her purse and stood
up. "May I try to improve things?"
I forced a smile. "Please go ahead. I was
in a hurry this morning."
She tossed away the stained Kleenex.
"There," she said, smiling, "now you look like the
refined and lovely young woman that you are.
The ladies you'll be speaking to this afternoon will be
properly impressed." She turned back to her
desk. "You're one of the lucky ones who
doesn't really need much makeup."
Her easy laugh eased my tension. From the day
I joined the school's staff, Ione had been
one of those naturally supportive people whose friendship
I much valued. While I was working on my
lecture notes she came to my office and
noticed me rubbing my eyes. She suggested that
if I really had a bug I should go home. She
offered to get a message to Joe and to pick up
Joy from the preschool. I declined these
suggestions and told her I'd be fine, yet I
couldn't stop thinking about Joy's socks.
The rest of my day went well. I took a
couple of classes with the kids (to whom it mattered
not whether I looked like a ghost or a clown),
attended an administrative meeting in the late
afternoon, and met with the ladies of the church group, who
gave me a warm welcome. I managed to sign
up another half dozen volunteers.
By the time I collected Joy, the wintry sun
was setting. In the fading light my eyesight
improved. I could definitely mark the
undulations in the snow. On the way home I
stopped in at a pharmacy, intending only to buy
over-the-counter medication for my cold. I did
purchase some recommended capsules, but on the
way to the exit I noticed a rack of
sunglasses. I tried on a pair. Everything
looked much clearer. I bought the glasses too.
Joe was amused by the glasses, flashed a big
grin, and asked if I had any Hollywood
pretensions. "Don't those female film stars
wear sunglasses even in bed?" he joked.
"How would you know?" I parried. Joe's grin
widened. Then I tried to explain that the dark
glasses helped a lot. But by this time I'd
understandably lost his attention because there was a sports
program on the TV.
The next day all the trillion cold bugs
made a full-scale attack. I felt
awful. My head throbbed like an African
drum. I phoned the Braille School to tell them
I wouldn't be in, and why. I was actually talking
to Brenda Armstrong, another colleague and
close friend. When I had outlined my symptoms
and related how pink socks looked white,
Brenda immediately advised me to see my
doctor.
"Oh, it's not that bad," I protested.
Brenda said, "Perhaps not, but I don't like what
you're telling me. Get to a doctor now--as
soon as possible, like today, if you can."
The urgency in Brenda's voice got to me.
She had joined the Braille School staff at the
same time I had. She was a professional
authority on educating people with low or no vision.
I asked myself if she knew something about my
visual aberration that I didn't.
"Okay," I told Brenda, trying to keep
my voice casual, "I'll try to get an
appointment today."
"Good girl. And by the way," she added,
"isn't it your birthday?"
"That's the problem," I sniffed. "We've
got Joe's brother and his wife coming. They're
taking us out to dinner."
"Congratulations," she said, "but keep your
priorities in order."
In fact, the doctor's appointments' ledger
was already overloaded, or so his assistant told
me. However, she could squeeze me in early the
following morning.
That evening, when we went out to Vinton's
plushest steak house with Joe's kinfolk, I
assuredly wasn't an Emily Post. But I
got through the evening and also half a box of
tissues. Birthday kisses were sensibly
postponed.
The following morning I was Dr. Tony
Anthony's first patient. He greeted me
warmly because not only was he the official
physician for the Braille School, he was also a good
friend.
His first question was why on earth I was wearing dark
glasses on a January morning. I explained
how the glasses helped me to see a whole lot
better outside in the snow-blanketed community,
and how they also helped me under the bright lights of his
office. Then I laughingly told him the story of
Joy's socks.
He reached out and removed my glasses.
"Okay, Joan," he demanded, "what color
is this room?"
I squinted at the walls. "Pretty close
to being the same color as the ceiling," I said
guardedly.
"Which is?"
"White, of course."
"Not quite," said the doctor.
I looked at the walls again. "Well," I
conceded, "I suppose they could be a little
off-white. Out west they might call it adobe
white."
Dr. Anthony chewed his lip.
I asked, "They're not by any chance ..."
"Yes they are." He grunted. "The
decorator's choice, not mine, I assure you.
But they are very patently a deep shade of pink."
I was aware of a missed heartbeat. The
doctor rose from his desk and went to the door.
Over his shoulder he told me that he would be sending
in his assistant to make routine tests, including
a check on eye pressure.
He must have observed my look of concern. He
came back, patted both shoulders and said,
"We're going to find out what the trouble is. It
may well be sinusitis. There's a lot around
at this time of year." His hands slipped up to my
neck. "Glands swollen," he added.
Routine checks by the assistant took quite a
long time. My ears and throat were examined, my
blood pressure taken, my eyes numbed
by drops of anesthetic for the eye pressure test.
I was recalling how the kids in my classes at
school regularly took similar tests. I'd
often accompanied them, held their hands, comforted
them. And now it was me in the chair! I needed
someone to hold my hand.
As I sat alone waiting for the return of
Tony Anthony, the mild anxieties of the past
forty-eight hours began to coalesce into a clot
of fear.
But no, I told myself, there can't possibly
be anything seriously wrong. I had
twenty-twenty vision. I didn't need
glasses for the phone directory, and when
migrating geese flew over Vinton I was the
first to spot them. Except for this darned cold I
felt pretty good. Anyway, no one's
eyesight deteriorated overnight--not insofar as
I knew--unless there'd been an explosion or
something. There was that one kid at the school, poor
little Harry, who'd lost his sight fairly
rapidly. But that was after a car accident, or was it
a fireworks accident--something like that.
But no matter how hard I tried to soar on
thermals of optimism, the fears began
to spiral into panic. I did have one fail-safe
answer to panic.
I prayed (in a whisper, as I recall),
"Dear Lord, you know what's wrong--if there's
anything wrong--but please take away my fear."
Almost instantly, my hunched shoulders dropped
and my fisted fingers uncurled. Truly, the
sudden, scary squall within my mind quietened.
A moment later the door opened, and in came
Dr. Anthony and his assistant.
He said breezily, "Joan, the eye
pressure checks out just fine, but this visual
loss of color is--er--confusing. So I want
you to see an ophthalmologist."
"But isn't my cold causing the problem?" I
suggested.
"May well be," he replied. "But--well
--it could be more serious."
"Serious! But you said my eyes were okay."
"No, I didn't say that. I said the
pressure was within the norms."
"But wouldn't a couple of days in bed, and--"
Dr. Anthony cut in. "I've already been
on the phone. You've got an appointment to see
a good man in Waterloo this very afternoon."
Ten minutes later I was back home. Joe
and Joy were dressed for the winter's blast and ready
to take off for the preschool and his office.
"Heck, you were a long time," said Joe.
"Was the waiting room that full?"
Joy asked, "Mommy, did they give you a
shot?"
I gave her a smile. "No shot, but I'm
afraid we're going to have to reorganize the day.
I've got to be in Waterloo by two o'clock.
I've got to see an eye doctor."
"Whoopee! No school!" exclaimed Joy.
Joe gave me a keen look. Crisply,
he said, "I'll phone the office."
While we were driving, Joy asked me to read
to her. Because my eyes were watery I suggested we
recite nursery rhymes. We singsonged
"Jack and Jill went up the hill," and "Little
Jack Horner sat in a corner." Her
favorite was "The Snowflake Song." Together,
and for the umpteenth time, we sang "The Snowflake
Song":

For goodness, goodness sakes,
Just look at all those snowflakes!
Ping, pong, pung!
I'll catch some on my tongue.

Like the petals of a rose
They're landing on my nose.
Pung, pong, ping!
Snow makes me want to sing!

Snow's coming down in whirls,
Flakes landing on my curls!
Ping, pung, pong!
This is my snowflake song!

It was a timely verse, because the blizzard that had
been forecast kept the windshield wipers working at
the maximum pace. After the second encore
Joe joined in. For the next few miles, "The
Snowflake Song" and our laughter helped me
to forget completely the need for the journey.
In now recalling that drive down the
white-ribboned road between Vinton and Waterloo
I can recreate the scenes with quite extraordinary
vividness. I see the whirling of snowflakes.
I hear the squeaking of windshield wipers working
overtime to give some vision through the blizzard. My
nostrils even pick up the pungent smell of
damp woolen scarves and mittens. I hear again
our chorus of laughter as though, long years ago,
I had made a high-fidelity recording of it.
I know now, of course, why the picture is so
clear, why the kaleidoscope of sounds and scents
and touch are so deeply grooved upon my mind.
What I did not comprehend at the time was that
soon, so very soon, the harmony of all my
senses would not experience the like again.


"That's My Wife!"

The Waterloo ophthalmologist dilated my
eyes and spent a long time peering through a
sophisticated apparatus. Joe and Joy
remained in the waiting room.
Eventually the doctor swiveled his chair around
to a wall desk. His pen scratched on a
notepad. My patience had rarely been more
hard-tested. My mind was screaming Tell me
I'm going to be okay! Tell me
something!
The scratching of the pen ceased. The doctor
stood up. Disappointingly he said, "Let's go
to my office."
Once again I find myself recalling small and
irrelevant details of this the first of many expert
examinations of my eyes. I remember the
exceptionally deep pile of the office carpet, the
backs of what seemed to be silver photograph
frames on the desk. I can see again what
appeared to be an India-ink etching or sketch
of a seascape on the wall above the doctor's
head. It may have been a colorful painting.
Somewhere behind me a clock faintly ticked away
the seconds.
Through misting eyes, I could make out that the
doctor was turning pages of a large,
presumably medical volume. I kneaded the
smooth armrests of the chair.
"Tick-tock" went the clock as seconds
mounted into one minute, two minutes. I felt
I knew what it was like to be in the dock of a
courtroom when the jury had just returned with a
verdict.
"Guilty or innocent?" I heard myself
asking.
I could make out the doctor lifting his face from
the volume and removing his spectacles.
"What was that?" he asked.
My voice again--like a mendicant pleading for
alms. "Please, doctor, give me something.
Give me the verdict."
The heavy volume was closed with the sound of a wet
towel being dropped on a bathroom floor, a
sort of plop. His answer was about as
anticlimactic as it could be. "I don't
know," he said.
"You don't know?" I exclaimed. "But there
must be something, there must ..."
"Yes, Mrs. Beringer, there is obviously
something. But without more tests, for which I don't have the
facilities, I cannot tell you what the problem
is."
Then he gave me a short lecture on what
he described as "the astonishing miracle" of
eyesight. He spoke as if he were talking to a
child. He told me that the retina of each eye
holds 107 million cells. Of these, 7
million are cones, each electrically charged
to send off messages to the brain the moment
a few photons of light strike them. The cones
provide color awareness. They provide the
ability to distinguish a thousand shades of color.
"The cones are the cells which, when healthy, should
have told you that your daughter's socks were pink, not
white." He chuckled over my recalling that
story for him.
I helped him along. I was now anxious
to rejoin Joe and Joy. I interjected, "And the
rods distinguish between black and white."
"Quite right," he said enthusiastically, as if he
were a teacher congratulating a bright student. "I was
forgetting that you work with blind children. Guess you've
studied these things. Yes, the rods pick out
shades of gray. They allow you to see, for instance,
shapes on a moonlit night."
Through the door and somewhere down the passage I
could hear Joy's laughter. I figured that she
had to have found something funny in a comic book. The
doctor continued his mini-lecture, but now he
upgraded my intelligence and threw in a few
polysyllabic words.
"As I was saying, Mrs. Beringer, there's
obviously some neurological interference to your
visual capacity--markedly, to the reception of the
cones. Frankly, I do not know why, so I am
referring you to an appropriate specialist at
the University of Iowa Hospital. As a
matter of fact, he's a friend, so I'm sure
they'll give you an early appointment and find the
answers."
"And the cure?" I asked.
He stood up, came around the desk, and
patted my arm. "Why not?" he said.
"Diagnostically they're making big strides.
Find the cause, then find the cure. That's what
we physicians are trained for."
On my returning to the waiting room I felt
sure Joe could tell from my expression that I was
not yet ready to celebrate anything.
It was, in fact, two weeks before I could
get an appointment at the University of Iowa
Hospital. When I awakened each morning I
hoped that my eyes would be better, but each day my
vision was worse. I tried to convince myself that I
could function adequately. I had been driving
Joy the two and a half blocks to her
preschool. The windshield became more and more fogged
up. I vainly tried to clean the glass.
One morning, bitter as it was, I
opened the window and stuck out my head, hoping that
I'd be able to see better. The fog was still there.
I drove over a deep gutter, causing the car
to rock wildly and bump hard. Joy cried out in
alarm. I acknowledged that I was endangering my
daughter and others on the road. I somehow
managed to deliver Joy to the preschool; then I
deserted the car and stumbled through the snow to Joe's
office.
To Joe I blurted out, "I cannot drive again.
I could have killed Joy this morning or maybe
run down another child. I must not drive
anymore. I'm so sorry, Joe. Forgive
me."
He was gentle with me. "There is nothing
to forgive," he told me. "They'll find the
problem. They'll find the answer." He said this with
real and comforting conviction.
Colleagues at the school were no less
sympathetic, no less helpful. My
supervisor, Dan Wirth, who was director of
studentsthome services, gave me a magnifying
device, in size and shape like a golf ball, but
flattened at the top and bottom. When placed
on a page, he told me, it would magnify
letters fivefold.
One late afternoon after I'd been working, I
took the device to the deserted school library,
a handsome building that housed many Braille books,
technical books, and shelves of large-print
books for the partially blind. The sun was setting and the
light in the empty library was low--a light that
now best suited me.
I took one of the large-print books to a
corner desk, then placed the magnifying glass
to a page randomly selected. I couldn't make
out a single letter, let alone a word. I turned the
glass golf ball the other way round and tried
again. All that was visible were faint blobs.
A brutal truth hit me with crushing
impact. My central vision was all but gone.
Many of the partially blind children could see better than I
could now see.
"Oh God! Oh God!" I cried the words
aloud in the silent library. Tears welled up
and fell upon the hand that held the golf ball
magnifying glass.
The almost eerie quiet was broken by the sound of
approaching footsteps. A stairwell door was
opened with a rattle of keys. A
janitor was making his rounds. The library door
was swung open but the janitor did not see me
at the corner desk. His footsteps faded
into silence. Now another fearful truth: my ears
were becoming as important to me as my eyes. As
twilight moved to darkness, I remained at the
desk too numbed to move until I remembered
that Joe was to meet me in the entrance lobby
downstairs. My limbs jerked into action, for were
Joe to see no lights from the library windows he
would assume I'd made my own way home.
When we met in the lobby I collapsed
into Joe's arms. His rebuke stopped my slide
into hysteria.
"Snap out of it, Joan," he told me.
"You've got to shape up and start to take a
positive attitude. Isn't that what we teach
them in this place?"
I sobbed, "But I couldn't read a single
word." I held the glass golf ball out to him.
"It didn't work. Just blurs. Nothing."
He put an arm around my shoulders. "People
don't go blind--not just like that. It doesn't happen
that way, and you know it."
That's right, I told myself. It doesn't
happen like that. I couldn't think of one child who had
come into my care who had had a medical history
comparable to what seemed to be happening to me.
As we walked from the library to the car, I
repeated Joe's words aloud. "You're right," I
said, "it doesn't happen like that. It doesn't!
It doesn't!"
What was curious and initially encouraging, too,
was that I still had some peripheral vision. In
brilliant light I was almost totally blind, but when
the light was low I could, if I turned my head,
make out objects, albeit colorless, and
movement. There were moments, too, again when the light
was dim or when I was wearing dark glasses (which
I now did most of the time), when I rediscovered
a tiny window of central vision.
So I was not without hope when Joe and I set
out for my first appointment at the University of
Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. It is one
of the biggest teaching hospitals in America and it
was only an hour's drive from Vinton.
The hospital's ophthalmology department was
familiar to me, for I'd often taken Braille
School children there. I knew that I'd be going to an
institution that had not only the latest
diagnostic equipment, but several specialists
with national and even international reputations. I was
consoled by knowing that in seeking the cause and cure of
my problem the best medical help was virtually
on my doorstep.
I was hardly less fortunate in being on the
staff of Vinton's Braille and Sight Saving
School, where many of my co-workers were highly
trained and long experienced in helping the blind and
partially sighted cope with their totally dark or
shadowed worlds.
As we turned onto the highway for Iowa
City, I mentioned these advantages to Joe. I
said laughingly, "If there's one place I'd
choose to be blind it's right here!"
I was shaken by his almost savage response.
He thumped the steering wheel with his fist and said,
"For Pete's sake, Joan, it's not funny.
Anyway, you're not going blind, damn it! You
can't!"
In the ensuing silence I began to comprehend what
a load I had placed upon my husband. I
felt sure he had already pictured himself with a blind
wife and, because he was a perfectionist, the picture
would be grim, perhaps intolerable. As a gesture of
reassurance, I wanted to reach out and touch his arm,
but feelings of guilt and resentment held me
back.
The tension became an almost physical barrier
and, as I was soon to discover, silence and isolation
can so readily provide an atmosphere for
negative thinking.
As we drove to Iowa City I found myself
reflecting upon the irony of my situation. Here
I was, a professional, a mother and a wife who,
just a few weeks earlier, had been contented enough with
her life. Each day I had been giving my
physical, mental, and spiritual energy to helping
children scramble and claw their way up from their own dark
pits into a world of sighted people. I had had the
privilege of assisting children in their journey from
helplessness to achievement, from self-defeat
to self-confidence. I had had a real and rewarding
part in helping young people move with a sense of promise
into an illuminated environment.
But was I myself now going the other way? Was I
slithering into dark valleys, tumbling, and out of
control of my own destiny ...?
It was a horrible thought, but a worse one
followed. Shamefully there flashed through my
mind the possibility that some blindness could be
contagious or infectious. Had I, in hugging one
of my blind children--and, God knows, no one is in more
need of hugging--picked up some bug that was causing
my loss of sight? I killed this completely
irrational thought immediately, for I knew that were I
to pursue it, the only end result would be
bitterness.
As Joe turned the car into the parking lot of the
huge hospital I resolved that were I ever again
to blame anyone else for what was happening to me
I would crush the notion at once.
When Joe opened the car door for me I must have
been smiling, for he apologized for what he
called "my loss of perspective." "Okay,
Joan, let's get to these guys who are going
to fix you up." A grim laugh, then, "Yeah,
if they don't fix you up good they're going to have
to answer to me!"
I now understood what really troubled Joe. This
man at my shoulder who gave every outward
impression that he was afraid of nothing or anyone
was now, in fact, fearful. He was afraid for
me, afraid for Joy, and, I was sure,
afraid for himself.
In facing up to his own fears he had convinced
himself that I was going to get well. What right had
I to question this conviction?
Our reception was hardly red-carpet. We were
merely one couple in a myriad of
people--grandparents hobbling, babies crying, a
family within earshot obviously grieving. My
guess was that the young woman at the reception desk
to which we were directed had either just had a fight with her
boyfriend or was suffering from PMS. She was coldly
brusque as she tapped into her computer the usual
questions and answers. I could almost see Joe's
greenest gall rising when she demanded evidence of
health insurance before she would type in my name.
Then we had to find our way to the
ophthalmology department which, I could recall, was
about a mile distant, or so it seemed. As we
dodged between other patients, gurneys,
visitors, and unidentifiable others, Joe
grumbled that the hospital should have installed a
Disneyland-like monorail.
At last we reached the appropriate waiting
room. My fuzzy vision indicated that at least
three dozen people had arrived there ahead of us. Then
the waiting--and the waiting and the waiting. These
times of waiting were to be among the worst for me,
perhaps the worst for many patients entering a
hospital, each confused, each wondering what had
gone wrong with their bodies; many hurting, many
scared.
It was nearly two hours after my scheduled
appointment when my name was called. Joe was not with
me at this moment. He had left the room to find
a water fountain. I stood up and, for better
vision, glanced sideways, fuzzily, to see
what appeared to be an immensely tall man
beckoning me. I followed his white coat
until we reached another room where other
white-coated individuals were grouped together.
I was taken to a chair that could have been a prop
for a Star Wars movie--or could have been
cannibalized from furniture in a
hair-dressing salon or a dentist's office.
There seemed to be a Viking-like helmet above my
head. If I had not been anxious about Joe I
would have been tempted to call out, "Beam me up,
Scotty!"
Then I was aware that Joe had arrived. One
of the white coats (female) asked if he was
lost; what he was doing in this area?
"That's my wife," said Joe, "and I'm
staying with her." He spoke with the authority of a
Marine colonel. I could see him move to an
empty seat. I gave him a grateful smile.
The very tall doctor squatted on a stool
beside me. He said so wearily that I guessed I
was probably his tenth patient since his working day
had begun, "Now, Mrs. Beringer, will you please
read the third line down on the chart on the wall
in front of you."
"What chart?" I asked. My question created a
sudden silence. Although I couldn't be sure, I
felt that every white coat in the room was staring at
me.


The White Coats

On that first visit to the University of Iowa
Hospital, between fifteen and twenty
physicians and medical students took turns
studying my eyes. It was awful. The white
coats, as I collectively called them,
seemed to regard me with very special interest.
What not only irritated me, and offended
Joe greatly, was that they often talked about my
case as if I wasn't within earshot. To me,
most of the exchanges were medical gobbledygook,
but I translated enough to comprehend that what they were
seeing through their ophthalmoscopes was most
unusual.
Whenever I asked questions I was patronized.
"We'll let you know in good time," said one white
coat. "We're still working on it," said another.
"Just be patient, Mrs. Beringer," said a third.
The name of one doctor kept cropping up, and
it was spoken with reverence. Dr. James
Corbett was the chief of neuro-ophthalmol-
ogy. I was given to understand that all the reports
on my eye examinations were being referred to him. The
order came through from Dr. Corbett that I was to have
an immediate CAT scan.
Joe could see how exhausted I was from three
hours of examinations, and I feared he might blow
his top when told about the CAT scan, which, we
understood, would take about one hour.

It was not until very late in the afternoon and after the
scan that I first met Dr. Corbett. Joe was
at my side when we were taken to his office.
"So this is the famous Joan Beringer," he said
as he shook my hand.
"Famous!" I responded with surprise.
"Oh, no, not me. You must be thinking of another
patient."
Dr. Corbett chuckled, and several white
coats who were standing nearby chuckled along with him.
"Young lady," he said, "you've been keeping much
of my staff busy today and you're a real
puzzlement."
One of the white coats interjected, "Indeed,
we're all very intrigued. Not come across anything quite
like it. We're like astronomers picking up
strange signals and we're going to train our
most powerful--er--telescopes on the--er--
object."
I could sense that Joe was beginning to seethe again.
The astronomy metaphor had, unwittingly, not
been well chosen. Joe had protested several
times in the course of this long day that I was being
treated like an object. I nudged his arm and
hoped he would pick up the signal to bite his
tongue.
"Ah, but we haven't given you the good news,
Mrs. Beringer," said Dr. Corbett.
Good news! A surge of relief began
to sweep over me.
From Joe's next remark it was obvious that
he, too, now felt that the worst was over and that my
loss of sight was temporary. I was aware of his
chest expanding with a huge intake of breath. He
blew out most of the air with a long, drawn-out
"Pheeew" and then said, "Well, thank heavens
for that! Can we go home now?"
"Afraid you've misunderstood me," said Dr.
Corbett quickly. "I was speaking about the CAT
scan. The images show no signs of a brain
tumor."
My mind was now reeling. Tumor! I'd never
given any thought to my having a brain tumor.
No one had even whispered that that was what they'd
been looking for when they'd given me a CAT
scan.
Joe snorted. "So that's what you call good
news, doctor!"
Dr. Corbett responded coolly. "It
is good news. There seemed to be indications--the
speed of the onset of the loss of vision, for instance--
which suggested possibilities of a tumor. Yes,
we're much relieved, Mr. Beringer, but we
want to continue with other tests at once. Your
wife's to be admitted to the hospital immediately."
My knees felt rubbery. I leaned heavily
on Joe's arm. "Oh no," I said weakly.
"I can't possibly. We have a small daughter
at home. We've got to--"
Dr. Corbett cut in. He said
quietly, "I think you don't understand how concerned
we are and how determined we are to find the cause
of the problem. I've already given instructions for your
next major test--a spinal tap at eight tomorrow
morning."
Protectively, perhaps, Joe moved half a
pace in front of me. With that ring to his voice
that could bring a sassy student to heel he said,
"Five minutes from now my wife and I are going
to be on our way to our home in Vinton. She's
had one heck of a day here, and she's going to have a
restful night in her bed--in our bed. If you
insist, I'll get here by seven o'clock tomorrow
morning."
A pause, then, "Fair enough," said Dr.
Corbett. I felt sure I heard a
collective sigh from the other white coats.
Clearly no one ever questioned the orders of
Dr. Corbett--no one except Joe. I was
proud of him.
My husband was already leading me away when, over
a shoulder, I asked the doctor, "Do I need
to bring anything with me--a toothbrush, whatever?"
A laugh from everyone. Dr. Corbett said,
"A toothbrush, certainly, and enough toothpaste
to last you at least two weeks."
"Two weeks!" I exclaimed. "I'm not
feeling sick or anything."
Dr. Corbett put his hand on my shoulder.
He said, "May I call you Joan? We're
going to be seeing a lot of each other. Yes,
I'm afraid at least two weeks. We're
planning a lot of tests."
When we reached home, one of my first duties
was to call our folks. I had previously told
them in rather vague terms that I was having trouble with
my eyes, but now it was time to speak of the gravity of
my condition.
Mom and Dad lived in Wisconsin where Dad
had his present ministry. Dad was a pastor of the
Reformed Church in the United States. Joe's
parents, Ken and JoAnne, lived in South
Dakota. Both couples were about six driving
hours away. To all four of them we gave just the
basic facts. Dad and Joe's parents insisted
on being with us as soon as possible. They would be on
the road before dawn. Joe's folks would take
over when needed.
Joy was excited by the prospect of seeing her
grandparents, but was confused by my inability to read
to her.
Joy was not yet four, and I felt, as did
Joe, that it was not the right moment to explain my
vision loss. As I tucked her into bed, I
told her simply that I would not be at home for a
while because I had to go to the hospital. I
assured her that she could come and see me. It would be
the first time in her life that we would be parted for more
than a few hours.
Joy mulled over this information for a few moments.
I was wrong in anticipating protests and tears,
and delighted when she asked, "Can we ask God
to help you, Mommy?"
Joy's prayer, spoken from our knees as we
knelt at her bed, was surely as simple and as
pertinent as any He has heard. While
theologians might have frowned, I felt God
would have smiled when my daughter, who was
hugging her favorite toy, added, "And
Winnie-the-Pooh wants you to help my
Mommy, too."
What amazed me that night--and, indeed,
frequently took me by surprise in the nights
and days to come--was my being able to find, or my being
led, to places of inner peace. Much later, when
speaking of this and of other experiences to a
professional group, a psychologist intimated
that I was protected from mental breakdown by either my
denial of reality or by an extended state of
shock. I could almost see the psychologist's lip
curling when I spoke of a child's prayers for her
mother's well-being.
Joe kept his word to Dr. Corbett. At
seven the next morning I found myself in a small
ward on the second floor of the neurology
inpatient wing at the University of Iowa
Hospital.
The receiving nurse would not allow me to wear my
prettiest nightgown. For the spinal tap I was
obliged to wear one of those cotton hospital
gowns with ties at the back. Joe was tying the
last one into a bow when a team of doctors and
medical students walked in.
I was instructed to lie in the fetal position,
my back to the white-coated company. The ties,
so carefully done by Joe, were loosened. A
female medical student, who blithely confessed
that she had never undertaken the procedure before, was
given the needle. Of course I couldn't see
what was going on, but from the ribbing by other students
and the running commentary, I gained a good picture
of the scene behind me.
The nervous young woman jabbed my back three
times before finding needle-entry to the spinal
column. The draw-off of spinal fluid
wasn't painful enough to evoke more than an ouch from
me, but I didn't appreciate the students'
banter. Had Joe been allowed to remain in the
room I think a couple of the cruder students
might have been in danger.
After the procedure was completed, the physician
in charge gave me careful instructions to lie on
my back for the next six hours. He told me
that he didn't want me even to lift my head
or wiggle a foot. So naturally I was
puzzled when, a couple of hours later, a
wheelchair was pushed into the ward and I was told that
I was to be taken off for X rays.
To the radiologist who x-rayed me in
positions that might have won a contortionist's nod
of approval, I did make some mild reference
to the instructions given earlier about my need
to remain absolutely still. However, I don't
think he listened to me as he clattered fresh
film into the table slot or refocused his
apparatus.
Without warning and while I was being wheeled back
to my room, an excruciating headache hit me.
I had never before had a headache that had not been
exorcised by an aspirin. But the pain that now hit
me caused me to cry out and to cradle my head
against the slightest jar. Nurses and physicians
were alerted. I felt relief when they injected a
strong painkiller into a vein. Then I was aware that
Dr. Corbett was in the room--others, too.
Dr. Corbett was throwing out some angry questions.
It was obvious that whoever it was--nurse,
physician, or technician--who had permitted
me to be taken to the X-ray lab was soon going
to be facing his anger.
The headache, caused by my being moved too
soon after a spinal tap, continued for forty-eight
hours, but the pain was made bearable by strong
painkillers--and by the arrival, first, of my parents
and later, of Joe's parents. For the first days of
my hospital stay one or another of my kin was
with me for most of the daylight hours.
But I'm painting too bleak a picture, because
for much of the time I was in the hospital I was given
rich and loving support by family and friends.
I went through the whole gamut of emotions, and
I thanked God for the shoulders that absorbed the
tears. There were moments of laughter, too. I
was, in fact, alone when one of the funniest
incidents occurred.
Above my bed there was now a placard that read
BLIND PATIENT in letters (so Joe had told
me) about six inches tall. I'd had my supper
when a hospital volunteer bustled into my ward.
She was wheeling a cart that was in sore need of
lubrication.
"Art cart! Art cart!" cried my visitor.
I must have given her some expression of my confusion
because she explained that she came around once a
week to change the pictures on the walls of the
different wards.
In a mid-Atlantic voice as hearty as a
department store Santa Claus she
continued, "I see you've got the Van Gogh
irises. You like the French Impressionists, eh?
Got a Monet here, or would you like a pretty
English country scene? Think it's a Constable--you
know, fields, trees, and a hay wagon. Yes,
very peaceful." Lowering her voice
conspiratorially, she continued, "Some of those
naughty men often ask me for a nude!" Her
laughter rattled the cart. "I tell them no
nudes. Does the wrong thing for their blood
pressure!" The cart was again jiggled by giggles.
"Of course, you can hang on to the Van Gogh if
you want to and I'll ..."
I guessed at what had caused her bright
chatter to trail into a silence so heavy with
embarrassment that it was almost tangible. She'd seen
the sign above my bed.
The wheels of the art cart squeaked. From the door
the volunteer murmured, "So sorry. Didn't
realize. Tactless of me ... So sorry ..."
She also left me giggling. It was my first
genuine laughter in far too long. It felt so
good.
There was another unexpected visitor that
evening. In the softest of Irish lilts, Mrs.
O'Leary introduced herself. She was, she
told me, the cleaning lady for this floor and she
chose to work the evening shift.
"Gives me more time to make new friends, and
'sides, 'tis easier to use a mop in empty
passages and elevators. And how are you,
darlin', if you'll not mind me askin'?" She was
speaking from the door and waiting, I assumed, to be
invited in. I did so.
"I'd like to," she said, "but tonight I'm
runnin' a tad late. There's a lad t'other
side of the nurses' station needin' some
hand-holdin'. But I will be seein' you. That I
promise."
At our first encounter I had no inkling of how
much Mrs. O'Leary's friendship would mean to me.
Shortly after this visit I was given the
evening's third bonus--an unanticipated
phone call.
"That you, Mom?" asked a childish voice which
was certainly not Joy's. I was about to respond that
the wrong number had been dialed when the voice
said, "It's me, Jay."
My stepson had never called me Mom. His
special name for me was Joannie. His
mother lived quite close to Vinton.
"Oh, Jay! I'm so happy to hear you.
Did your daddy tell you about me?"
"Yes, he told me your eyes are not seeing
very well." His words were uttered so loudly that I was
obliged to hold the phone three inches from my
head. He provided an explanation for his shouting
when he asked, "Do your ears work?"
"Oh, yes, they're fine," I reassured
him.
With words now softly spoken Jay urged me
to get well quickly. I promised I'd do my
best and I asked him to thank his mother for helping him
call me.
"Okay. Bye, Mom," said my
seven-year-old stepson.
I held onto the receiver for quite a while as I
reflected on how pleasing it was to hear a young boy
calling me Mom. Jay already had a special
place in my heart. He spent every second
weekend in our home where he was hero-worshiped
by Joy.
There were not many such happy moments, but they
seemed to be given to me when I most needed them.
I now find it hard to remember the sequence of my
hospital experiences. I ran through a
gauntlet of tests--magnetic resonance
imaging, more X rays, many electroencephalo-
graphs, at least a dozen more visits to the
cubicles where my eyes were examined through
ophthalmoscopes, and twice that number of
needles puncturing my arms to draw off blood
for laboratory examination.
In one of my early physical examinations, a
swollen lymph node was found in my right armpit.
The doctors had seemed to be so excited about this
discovery I had half expected them to shout
"Eureka!"
However, I knew enough about medicine to understand that a
swollen lymph node in this area of my body was
not infrequently a sign of cancer. My stomach
somersaulted and my mind spun through fresh
tunnels of anxiety when I was told that a
biopsy would be taken on the Wednesday of the
following week.
"Why the delay?" I asked weakly.
The physician who had found the node flatly
said that pathology was "all backed up." It was a
thoughtless and not atypical dismissal of my obvious
concern. I had six days to ponder the
possibility of cancer.
On the Tuesday night before the biopsy was
scheduled I was instructed to be ready by seven o'clock
the next morning to go to the oncology department.
An hour after dawn on the Wednesday I was
washed, dressed, and had had coffee and toast.
Seven o'clock came and went. So did eight o'clock,
nine o'clock, ten o'clock. My anger came slowly
to a boil, then steamed. Then I blew my lid.
A junior nurse who had been summoned by a
slam on the call button got the full blast
of my fury. A senior nurse was summoned and
within five minutes, I was on a gurney being
wheeled to an oncology room.
There, of course, I was smothered with apologies,
but my anger evaporated only when the surgeon
who examined my armpit said, "You may have had a
swollen lymph node when you arrived at the
hospital, Mrs. Beringer, but there's
absolutely no sign of one now."
I could have kissed him then, but today I can still
stimulate a spurt of anger by reflecting on
how long I was kept, as Joe put it, "twisting
in the wind."
In completing the story of the cancer scare I've
moved ahead of the most critical day of my stay
in the hospital.
Mom was with me when Dr. Corbett came
to my room. Surprisingly, he was without any
retinue--not even a nurse in attendance. I was
unable to see his expression, of course, but by now
I was becoming more sensitive to voice tone, even
to body language, like the shuffling of feet or the
cracking of a knuckle.
In fact, Dr. Corbett tweaked my toe.
He had done that before. I presumed he saw this
gesture as affectionate, tactile communication.
"And how is our Joan today?" he asked.
I was out of humorous or courteous
responses. When I failed to reply he said,
"You've been putting up with a lot, haven't you?
We still don't have the answers. But it's time
to tell you one thing."
"Yes?"
"All our tests, including the two spinal
taps, have shown us that the deterioration in your
eyesight is irreversible."
In the silence that followed, the word
"irreversible" seemed to take on a life of its
own. At its uttering, the word became a
serpentine thing--twisting, humping, stretching, and,
finally, coiling round my heart.


The Verdict

I've no recollection of how long that silence
lasted after Dr. Corbett had told me, in
effect, that I would be blind for the rest of my days.
The next thing I recall is Mom squeezing
my hand, and then how she rose from her chair and
took a step toward the doctor.
She was in full control of her voice when she
said, slowly, precisely, "Doctor, should you
ever have to give another report like this to my
daughter, I want you to be very sure that there is
someone with her--someone who is close to her."
Although her words, uttered with such class, were not
intended to be a rebuke, they struck a chord;
there was genuine humility in the famous doctor's
voice when he spoke again.
"Thank you, Mrs. Stuebbe, I promise
to be sure of that." A pause and then, "It is not
easy to be the bearer of bad news.
Unfortunately, in my work I often am. I do
believe that it is best to be frank--at least with
patients like your daughter who has ..." (he
felt for the phrase he wanted, and I liked it
when he spoke it) ... "an inner strength."
With maternal intuition, Mom knew what was
now uppermost in my mind. She asked, "May
my daughter go home now?"
Dr. Corbett cracked a knuckle. By now
he certainly knew that I was quite numb, virtually
paralyzed by his prognosis, for he spoke
to Mom, not me.
He said, "Of course I understand how you, your
daughter, and her family feel. A hospital
is not a prison, so Joan has every right to go
home. I hope she won't. Before she goes
I'd like to taper down the heavy doses of steroids
that we're now giving her. Her pleurisy and
arthritis are responding. But my main reason for
asking her to stay on in the hospital for some days
is that our continuing research of her case and some more
tests may well prove helpful, perhaps
sight-saving, to others who may be stricken down as
she's been stricken."
Mom asked guardedly, "What do you mean
by research, doctor? My daughter is not
a laboratory animal."
Dr. Corbett said, "I fear I've not
made it clear how unique and important your
daughter's case study is. We're in touch with
ophthalmologists, neurologists,
virologists, and other specialists in other
hospitals. We're tied into a network of
physicians and scientists from Boston
to Florida to California. I don't want
to get into the technical language. I'm sure
you don't want me to talk about autoimmune
retinopathy or pathologic proteins. There'll
be time to explain what we're finding. The foe that
hit Joan's eyes was fast, furious, ruthless,
and, speaking for the enemy, effective. It was like an
attack from kamikaze pilots. We know you have
macular degeneration--normally a malady of aging
--but we don't know what caused it. If we can
identify the foe we may be able to set up a
defense system that could save the sight of others."
Mom was still my champion and spokesperson.
"How long do you want to keep her?" she asked.
The doctor said, "A week, perhaps, ten days,
maybe."
Mom grasped my hand once more. "What do you
say, Joan?" she asked.
"Yes, Joan, it is, of course, up to you,"
said Dr. Corbett.
I licked dry lips. I was already wondering
how Joe was going to cope with a blind wife--could I
cook for him, clean house, do the laundry, do the
shopping? And what about my three-year-old? Could
I, as a blind mother, lead her through childhood
to womanhood?
I became aware of another long silence.
Oh, yes, they had asked me if I would stay in
the hospital--not for my sake alone. For the very first
time I was given the thought that I could be helpful
to others. It was a good thought.
I nodded. "Yes, I'll stay," I
whispered.
"Thank you, Joan," said Dr. Corbett.
"You're a brave young woman."
I thought, Oh why do you have to say things like that?
I'm not brave at all. I'm scared, so
terribly scared.
When the doctor had left the room Mom
pressed her cheek to mine. In her comforting me I
felt that I was myself a child again. How many times had
I run to her with a grazed knee or when
distraught from a brother's teasing. Now I sobbed,
"I'm blind! Mom, I'm blind! I'll always be
blind!"
I remember one phrase in my mother's efforts
to soften my sorrow. She said, "But you're the most
beautiful blind girl in the world." I would have
protested her perhaps maudlin remarks had I not
received them as a child. She spoke the Lord's
Prayer, too, and, when my throat permitted,
I joined her in some phrases--"Thy will be done
... Deliver us from evil ..."
I was so grateful (i still am) that my mother was
there to see me through the first shock of understanding that I
would not see again--not my daughter's sweet face,
not daffodils or tulips, not an avenue of
trees in springtime, not a work of art, not a
ballerina's pirouette--not a movie, not a
baseball game, not, not, not ...
But there were others who did not know the prognosis
and who were entitled to know it as soon as possible.
After Mom had fluffed my pillows and when my
sobbing had stopped, I asked her to phone the Braille
School and ask Joe to come as soon as possible.
"He must bring Joy, too. I need to see
them both. I want to see them separately," I
said. "Don't tell Joe anything more than that he
is needed. I want to tell them in my own
way."
Mom gave her promise and, sensibly or
tactfully, said that she would phone Vinton from the
hospital lobby.
So I was quite alone for perhaps half an hour, and
glad to be so, before my favorite nurse,
Katy, looked in on me. She was petite,
always upbeat, a brunette (she told me so);
we had shared a lot. She had accompanied me
to many of my tests and she had volunteered to read the
letters and cards that were coming in from all over.
I was so pleased to have letters (phone calls,
too) from my brothers who, in recent years, had
not been more than Christmas-card close to me.
Katy had difficulty reading some of the letters,
especially those painstakingly written by the partially
sighted kids at the Braille School. When she
choked up, I choked up, too. Then both of us
would laugh--quality laughter that accompanies
tears of gratitude.
Katy and I had a number of common interests
and experiences. She, for instance, like Joe, had
married a high school sweetheart. Also
like Joe, she had found teenage love to be
immature. Like Joe's, her first marriage had
broken up. Although Katy was my junior
by eighteen months, she had also had a daughter
only a year older than Joy.
"Just checking you out," said Katy from the door of
my room. "By the way, I do know the bad news.
Dr. Corbett told us. I am so sorry."
"Please, Katy," I pleaded, "don't
say any more at the moment. I want to look
okay for my husband, who'll be here soon."
"Understood," said Katy. "But if your guy's
on his way I'd better give your hair a
brush."
"Is it that bad?"
"Not if he likes haystacks," she said, and
we both laughed and hugged.
She stood back to admire her handiwork,
hummed approval, and then confessed to having left
one loose hair across the bridge of my nose and
cheek.
"You remind me of my Heidelberg
catechism," I told her.
"Sounds heavy," said Katy, now plucking the
hair from my face. "There! Got it!" she
exclaimed.
"The response to question one in my catechism,"
I told her, "was "without the will of the Father, not a
hair can fall from your head.""
"That right?" exclaimed my favorite but
agnostic nurse. "Sounds neat! From way back
in Sunday school I seem to remember about
sparrows falling from trees and the counting of hairs.
Well, if it's true, God's recount will show
that you've got one hair less than you had a
minute ago."
There was no mockery in her renewed laughter.
She kissed my forehead, made for the door, and
said, "It's okay, Joan, I'm not going to say
anything to make you cry, but I just want to say that
if you stay here much longer you'll make a believer
of me once again."
I told her that she couldn't have paid me a nicer
compliment. She chuckled and was gone.
Thanks in part to Katy, I really was ready for
Joe when he arrived at six o'clock. I sensed his
surprise at finding me composed and
well-groomed. I guessed he had wheedled
something out of Mom because, after kissing me, he said,
"News not so good, huh? Your mother said that
you wanted to see Joy and me separately.
Right?"
"Right," I said and then I went on to tell him
Dr. Corbett's prognosis. He was sitting
on the bed, and when I used the word "irreversible"
he jumped to his feet.
"I'm not going to believe that," he said. "Nor
must you. Never did like that Dr. Corbett. I
know he doesn't like me either. What right has he
to say that "you're permanently blind"?"
I helped him along. "Joe, we've got
to come to terms with the facts. I'm terribly,
terribly sorry. What hurts me most, what
makes my heart ache, is that I'm going to be a
burden to you."
I could tell he had been speaking from the window,
his face turned away from me. I tried in vain
to picture his expression. Was it anger, fear,
frustration, disbelief, or horror? In a moment
I had the answer. He turned around, then pushed
me to one side of the bed so that he could lie on the
other. Then he cradled my head. Although he did
not make a sound, I could tell from the jerkiness of
his breathing that he was trying to keep his crying under
control.
It was strange, but I now found myself doing the
comforting. I stroked his face, thanked him for his
courage and care.
After a while he made an attempt at a
joke. He said something about a hospital bed being
less comfortable than a rocky campground.
When I suggested that it was time for me to see
Joy, he agreed, but told me that he was going
to spend the night with me.
"It's okay," he said with forced laughter.
"I'm going to sleep right here on the floor."
It was not the appropriate moment to speak about
hospital rules.
A couple of minutes later Joy arrived and
came hesitantly to my open arms. Joe and
Mom left us alone. It was harder now to keep
my resolve to hold back the tears. Joy was
lying on my tummy, her breath soft against my
neck, when I told her, "Honey, I wanted
you here with me--just the two of us--so that I could tell
you something that's important to both of us. I think
you knew that I wasn't seeing well. That was why
I had to stop driving and why I couldn't read to you.
But now I have to tell you that my eyes are not working
at all."
I'd planned to give her a long silence so that
she could digest what I'd told her, but Joy
responded at once andwitha generous offer.
With sweet solemnity she asked, "Mommy,
can I kiss your eyes better?"
I gave her a hug, and tears were under my
eyelids. "Whenever you kiss me, I always feel
better," I assured her.
Joy wriggled up over my body a few
inches higher and planted butterfly kisses on
my eyelids.
A moment, then, "Mommy, why do your eyes
taste salty?" From my throat came an
uncontrollable cry of pain. Alarmed, Joy
pulled away from me, arching her back.
Breathlessly she asked, "Oh, Mommy, did
I hurt your broken eyes?"
After a moment or two of holding her to my
breast, I was able to say, "Honey, sometimes people
cry not because they've been hurt but because their hearts
are overflowing with love."
She pondered this for some seconds, then asked,
"Mommy, do hearts make tears?"
"The most beautiful ones of all," I
assured her.
Another thoughtful pause in which I could almost hear
her mind reaching for new concepts. "Mommy,
I'm glad your broken eyes can still make
beautiful tears."
I bent my lips to her forehead and wept quite
unashamedly into the silk of my daughter's hair.
The gold and glory of our lives is surely
created by such moments--moments that put no stress
on memory, for they are stored in the most secure
caches of our minds or, as I prefer it, within the
secret and most sacred chambers of our hearts.
I've known and talked with those who have been born
blind, among them many of the blind children given to my care,
and I've come to believe that imagination is more
important to them than memory. Speak to them of
color, for instance, and they will often relate color
to the sense of touch or sound. Red is likely,
within their thinking, to have a harsh texture, but green
or blue may "feel" as soft as silk or perhaps
be related to the clear, sweet sound of a flute.
But those, like me, who have lost their sight in later
years draw constantly upon memory. My
daughter is now in her teenage years, and while
I have not been able to see the maturing of her face
and figure, memory allows me still
to look into her dark brown eyes and see the
sparkle in them when she's amused, see their
widening in wonder on her discovering something new or
observing something that delights her.
I cannot conceive that anyone values memory more
than I. Thank heavens, too, for a good
forgettery. Perhaps the most important
attributes of pain and sorrow are their
abilities to fade, to self-blunt, as it were,
to lose those sharp, serrated edges which rip a
heart.
So those long days in the hospital and the longer
nights have so melded now that I'm obliged
to probe and pry out the incidents that might hold
interest. Joe did, in fact, sleep on the
floor in my room that night after I'd told him
of the permanency of my loss of vision. I
suspect that the nursing staff had been advised--
possibly by Dr. Corbett--to pretend they had
not seen or heard the snoring figure in the
corner.
But there was one midnight visitor. Mrs.
O'Leary, the buxom cleaning lady, called
in, and was so amused to find Joe with me that she had
difficulty stifling her laughter. Her concern was
not that hospital rules had been defied but was
only for Joe's comfort. From an empty room
next door she brought a pillow and a blanket,
and so gentle was she in covering him and placing the
pillow under his head that Joe's snoring was not
interrupted by a quaver.
When he was awakened by the sound of the breakfast
cart, Joe expressed guilt that he had slept
so well. Leaving the telltale pillow and
blanket on the floor, he crept out of the room
and returned to Vinton. I did not tell Joe
that on that night--and, indeed, through almost all my
nights in the hospital--I slept for less
than two hours.
Many, perhaps most, hospital patients discover
that at night, and especially in the small hours,
the swing of a clock's pendulum slows down, and
there are many more than sixty minutes to the hour. I
began to dread the nighttime, the introspective
hours when, to the sleepless, the imps of anxiety
become brooding ogres.
The solution to the problem of my restless,
fitful, and totally unprofitable hours came from
an unexpected quarter. I was listening to a
radio program when a talk-show host
interviewed a former Vietnam prisoner of war
who had survived four years of solitary
confinement. He related how his plane had been
shot down, how he had been captured and
tortured before being isolated in a prison cell.
Asked how he had managed to avoid going
crazy under such conditions, the veteran replied that
he had compiled an autobiography.
"Of course, I had neither pen nor writing
paper," he related. "But in my head I
recalled the events of my life, and, where
memory served me well, in minutest detail.
I climbed familiar trees again, walked my
neighbor's fences, re-created conversations with
siblings, cousins, classmates, the coach of my
football team, whoever ... By the time my
solitary confinement ended, my life story would have
competed in volume length with The
Encyclopaedia Britannica ..."
I was more than intrigued, I was fascinated by the
former POW'S self-designed therapy, which had
saved his sanity. By chance, I was listening to this
radio program shortly after my second
spinal tap. This time I was taking very seriously the
instructions to lie absolutely still for six hours.
While I wasn't being tortured--not
maliciously anyway--and while a touch of the
call button on the nightstand would bring another
human being to my side, there were times when I felt
my sanity was threatened.
Since I did not want to be carted off to the
hospital's psychiatric wing, I would be
careful not to voice my story aloud. But my
lips certainly moved, and a sensitive
microphone might well have picked up my
whisper when, with some excitement, I began
to compile my story.
"Once upon a time," I started in the manner and
tradition of every good story of early childhood,
"yes, once upon a time--actually in California
at seven in the evening of January 22, 1952
--a baby girl was born to Vivian, the wife
of the Reverend Robert Stuebbe. They christened her
Joan. And then ..."


A Serpentless Eden

When the bustle and business of the great hospital
had quietened and sleep had forsaken me,
remembrances of my childhood and young adult
years not only kept depression at bay but
often, as I lost myself in livelier scenes or
situations, I felt quite exhilarated.
In reliving my life story I was not at all
disciplined and often ignored chronology.
Memory behaved like a sprightly gazelle, leaping
from intended routes and hard pavements, as it were,
to graze a while in sun-speckled glens.
One phenomenon that may well be explained by the
newness of my loss of vision is that the different
scenes re-created from memory were so vivid, so
highly colored. I wondered if blindness had one
modest compensation--the brightening and sharpening of the
images thrown upon the screen of my mind.
Since I had little if any recollection of
my first three years of life, the first slide I
inserted into the projector of memory was of a
sunbaked California playground. I am
five. My towheaded friend, Kip (i can see his
red pants and yellow shirt), has put a
beetle (a lizard? a caterpillar?) down my
blouse. I feel the critter squirming against my
tummy.
I am so disgusted, so incensed, that with all the
strength of a skinny arm I punch Kip on his
freckled nose. Down he goes--howling.
Another child shouts to an authority figure that
Joan has just killed Kip. Horror grips
me. But if Kip is dead, why is he still
kicking his legs like that?
Of course, Kip made a rapid recovery
and we became friends again. But it was close to the time
of this playground incident that I had my first
encounter with death. On the road outside our
parsonage home I found a cat that had
recently been run over. In stroking the fur my
hand had been smeared with warm blood.
Dad had tried to explain to a dismayed child that
all living things, even people, died.
Most of us, I now reflected as this slide of
remembrance faded, could recall their trauma and
confusion on first discovering that life was
close-margined by death, and that even beautiful things
like tabby cats died. What about fathers and mothers? I
had asked. Surely fathers couldn't possibly
die! How hard it is for adults to enter the minds
of young children attempting to probe life's
mysteries.
Insofar as I could recall, my
childhood was lived out in a serpentless Eden.
I had--and still gratefully have--two brothers.
Bob is seven years my senior and Jon five
years older than I am. These age spans were
wide enough in childhood to be a barrier against
demonstrative or close fraternal affection.
I was gratefully aware that they were not among those
who were scooped into the bloodied paddy fields of
Vietnam. At the time, Bob was on special
assignment at Camp David, where he worked in
some capacity for President Johnson. Today
he works in one of the higher echelons of national
defense. Jon spent a year at the Air Force
Academy in Colorado before deciding that flying
supersonic jets was not his premier ambition.
He went on to become a lawyer and, today, he is
a California judge.
Indisputably, my early childhood's
closest friend was four-legged and fictional. Even in
my most tender conscious years my imagination
thrived. I could at any time enter a world of
fantasy outmatching anything in the Arabian
Nights.
Stabled within my mind was Princess, a
fleet-footed, golden palomino mare that could
gallop me along white-surfed beaches to distant
continents or around the sawdust of a three-ringed
circus. I was never more content, even into my
eleventh year, than when riding--barebacked, of
course, my hair streaming--that surefooted
imaginary mare with a silver-white mane.
I mounted her, let me now confess, during
catechism classes or when forced to accompany a
more tiresome parishioner on a Sunday afternoon
walk.
Princess imbued me with a passion for riding that
I have not relinquished. Watch the expression of a
sightless person when he or she is mounted on a
horse and there'll be some comprehension of their sense
of liberation.
As I lay wide awake at three o'clock one
morning I relived another fabulous ride. This
time my mount was as real as rain (princess had
long ago taken her final gallop over a
horizon of fantasy), and I was a
nineteen-year-old college student in South
Dakota.
The horse, a high-spirited gelding named
Midnight, was owned by one of my father's
parishioners who had generously invited me
to exercise him whenever I had the time or felt the
inclination. Dad's ministry then was in the little town
of Menno, not far from the University of South
Dakota.
On this particular ride I headed Midnight
into what I've heard South Dakotans refer
to as Nowhere Land--those stretches of countryside
where, so often, no habitation can be seen.
I cannot recall what it was that day that created such
a close harmony of nature--the trees (not many
in this countryside), the sweep and gentle fold of
fields, the sky with its blues shifting from soft
hues where they touched the earth, to deep azure in the
dome above. The timpanic beat of Midnight's
hooves, a-trot, mostly, a-gallop in short
spurts, added rhythm to the music and the poetry
of the hour. The solitude was no less than
spiritual.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, over the
next rise I saw a dwelling, an isolated
farmhouse which, as I approached it, was obviously
abandoned, vacant, its windows broken, its
paintwork peeling and discolored. The montage--the
grass all about rippling in the gentle breeze,
a warped fence that must at one time have enclosed a
garden, for there were flowers blooming among the weeds
--recalled an Andrew Wyeth painting. If
others had been riding with me they might have
described the house as spooky, but for me it
blended marvelously with an enchanted landscape.
I tied Midnight to a rusty hand pump and,
without a thought of trespassing or of danger, I
entered and explored the forlorn building. Boards
groaned underfoot, and the only piece of
furniture was a broken kitchen chair. A few
strips of torn and faded cloth hung across
north-facing windows.
Then, as I sat cross-legged on a
crumbling porch that gave a wide vista of the
prairie, I tried to people the house as it once had
been. I seemed to hear the laughter of young children, the
splash of water in a bucket under the pump where
Midnight was now straining for a more succulent patch
of clover.
The breeze carried to me the scents of wild
herbs, the acrid but not unpleasant smell of
Midnight's sweating hide. Yet I picked
up, too, or so it seemed, the delectable
smell of fresh bread just taken from the kitchen
oven. I heard (i felt so sure I
did), above the birdsong, the sweep of a long
skirt such as was worn at the beginning of the
century. It had to have been the skirt of the former
mistress of this now derelict abode.
So deeply engraved was this memory,
abstracted from the last year of my teens, that, even
lying in a hospital bed with almost totally sightless
eyes, I could re-create it in all dimensions;
in so doing, what would have been a restless, troubled
hour was shortened and wonderfully sweetened.
The nurse on duty walked softly to my
bedside.
"Still awake?" she asked.
I was quite startled by the interruption, and a tad
resentful, too.
"Yes," I told the nurse, "I'm quite
okay."
"Want me to give you something to help you
sleep?" she asked.
"No, I really don't," I responded in
the manner of a young child just distracted from play.
In urging me to try to sleep, the nurse
reminded me that I would be undergoing a number of
new tests in the morning. When she had left the
room, I attempted to recapture the peace and the
beauty of that memorable ride into Nowhere Land. I
managed one more fleeting glimpse. I saw myself
riding away from the abandoned house. I heard myself
resolving that one day I would return.
I never did. I never will.
On the next night in the hospital the duty
nurse again tried to talk me into taking some
sleeping pill. I think she would have persuaded me
to swallow it had I not by now become so very
intrigued by trying to relive my earlier years.
I again acknowledged that, as a biographer, I had
not been doing too well. I had not, for instance,
given any description of my parents. Nor had
I related how I came to be working with blind children.
Dad came from stolid Dutch-German stock.
On first encounter, a stranger might have seen an
austere man, too serious perhaps, a man who had
difficulty showing or expressing his emotions. In
fact, his whole life as a minister of the Reformed
Church of the United States, one of the smaller
Calvinist denominations, was dedicated to the
well-being of his fellow men, to their spiritual growth,
of course, but also to helping his parishioners--
indeed, people of all faith and of no faith at all--
to find solutions to personal problems
ranging from domestic strife and economic
hardship to illness and grief.
A cameo that comes to mind, one that may give
firmer substance to my father's flesh and faith, is
of his sitting for four hours through a wintry afternoon with a
suicidal mother on the gravestone of her child.
The child had accidentally drowned and the mother had held
herself responsible. I had watched Dad
persuading the distraught woman that life still held
meaning, and that her child had been received into the gentlest
of all arms. My father had instructed my brother
Jon to circle the cemetery frequently in the
family's car in the event that medical, as well
as spiritual, help was needed. I had been with
Jon.
I have no remembrance of my father ever having
punished me, but I can still quiver when
recollecting the look that he could give me if
he ever felt I had strayed from what he considered
appropriate conduct.
There was one such typical reprimand in my young
childhood. I had invited a group of
classmates to my home, which was alongside the
church. The concrete areas around the buildings were
well suited to roller-skating. After we had
spun our wheels around the church for about an hour,
one of my friends suggested we play a game of
hide-and-seek. The church, with its crannies,
pews, and organ loft were ideal for this game, and
I knew where my father kept the key.
Soon the sanctified building was filled with the
squeals of children at play. From his adjacent
office Dad must have heard us. He found me
hiding in the pulpit. His eyes bored into my own
like lasers. He never said a word to me about the
incident. He didn't have to!
I found my Christian faith because both Mom
and Dad lived it--I was constantly exposed to the
problems encountered by Dad's flock and to the care that
was needed and so readily given. Christ's commandments
--to love God and neighbor with all our hearts
--became as essential to my well-being as breathing
in and breathing out.
How to describe Mom? I suppose I
gained my bearing from her. I see her as
elegantly graceful. I'm sure the genes she
bequeathed to me account for the airier side of my
nature. She once laughingly told me that I
had run and danced before I had walked, and that I
had laughed before I'd learned to cry.
Perhaps if Mom had not been a preacher's wife
she could have been a part-time model, a part-time
teacher, a part-time counselor, a part-time
seamstress. For me, she embraced all the
exemplary virtues--she still does. Speaking
pastorally, she was always in the background, but I
believe the eyes of those who saw my parents together
would frequently shift from the preacher to the woman
who supported him. In doing so they would better
understand the conviction and strength of the man.
In any event, and in grateful tribute to my
parents, I can say that I grew up in a happy
and marvelously secure environment. I learned,
too, that there's a sharply defined line between right and
wrong.

While I lay in my hospital bed I
shifted from tears to laughter and back again to tears with
what, in less traumatic circumstances, might
have been regarded as unstable frequency.
Favorite Nurse Kate was taken aback when
I exploded into tears as she read me a letter from
my closest childhood friend, Louise ...
Louise, with her fiery Basque blood, and I
had once been inseparable. However, we had lost
touch in recent years. But she had heard through the
Bakersfield grapevine about my loss of
sight. In her letter she told me she was ready
immediately to fly to my bedside. Her sympathy, her
love, the image of her darkly beautiful and
animated face just tore me apart.
However, I was back on an even keel again
when Katy asked me how the "autobiography"
was going.
"It'll need a lot of editing," I told
her. "Louise alone deserves a full chapter.
Maybe I'll give her one later on."
Katy, who now said she could spare me no more
time without being fired, urged me to "keep at
it--because the therapy is obviously doing you a power
of good."
Perhaps this was true. In those first days and weeks
of knowing that I would never see again, I could believe
that my sanity was protected, in part, anyway,
by this unusual and often quite demanding occupation first
suggested to me by an unknown Vietnam POW.
On the following night when I was sleepless I
found myself thinking of my senior year in high
school.
It was a good year, and one not entirely
unimportant reason for declaring it to be so was because,
at last, I was filling out my sweater. At the
age of fifteen I had reached my full height
of five foot nine inches, yet I weighed
only ninety-five pounds! Louise had
charitably called me willowy, but more than a
couple of guys had nicknamed me Twiggy, a
name once elevated in the world of high fashion, but
which, in the classroom, embarrassed me
acutely.
I had had no intention of becoming a
professional model (although the idea had been
suggested), but I did entertain the notion of
becoming a professional dancer. I was not thinking so
much of the second line of the chorus at Las
Vegas as I was of being a dance teacher. I
particularly enjoyed modern dance and I had, my
teacher told me, been blessed with some talent; but
I was constantly pulled toward a career that would be
less self-serving.
In any event, in my senior year, when I was
eyeing boys (and, I was pleased to note, when
boys were now eyeing me) the idea of working withandfor people
who had special needs became more sharply
focused.
My father's decision to accept a ministry in
South Dakota was to prove critical to my own
life. My parents had lived in California
since before I was born. I had not thought of myself as
a typical Californian, but this is how I was
regarded when, with long blonde hair, a golden
tan, and stereotypically long legs, I entered the
University of South Dakota in Vermillion.
For my parents, traveling to the Midwest was,
as they themselves put it, "going home." They had
been married in Wisconsin and Dad had gone
to school in South Dakota. For me it was a
foreign land, but a land that I quickly learned
to love. Certainly I was shocked by the winter
weather. I, who had spent about eleven months of the
year in shorts and T-shirts, now had to invest in
long johns, padded snowsuits, thick mittens,
and earmuffs to face conditions that I had seen only
in movies about Eskimos and wolves.
I had never seen snow falling; snow to me was
something that sparkled only on distant peaks. An
unforgettable memory is of my first crunching
walk over virgin snow that street lights had
turned into a pathway of diamonds.
It was not only the beauty of winter that
I loved, but the indescribable wonder of the spring
and fall. In this, the heartland of America, the people
were so different, too--so welcoming, hospitable,
people still true to the creeds and aspirations of the founding
fathers. Surely Norman Rockwell found much
inspiration in this country where mothers were still honored,
flags were flown bravely and high, and every kitchen
seemed to smell of apple pie.
My friends in California had warned me that in the
Dakotas the mail was still delivered by the pony
express. I felt sorry for those in the Golden
State who had had no experience of the warmth of
South Dakota's hearths.
All too quickly, it had seemed to me, I had
graduated from the University of South Dakota
with the credentials to practice as a recreational
therapist. What I did not anticipate was that
my first jobs would be at the Yankton mental
institution and the women's correctional facility--
a euphemism for a grim, gray-stoned jail--which
were sited in the same well-guarded grounds.
Immediately assigned work in both institutions, I
was instructed to program and plan leisure
activities. Several of my "clients" (as they
were always designated) had been incarcerated for
homicide. On my first day on the job I was
introduced to a dozen clients, the majority of
them weighing at least two hundred pounds, and the
heaviest having ax-murdered her unfaithful
spouse.
A colleague laughingly told me later that
on my first day of work I had reminded him of a
prairie dog caught in the headlights of a
truck--rigid from alarm, paws defensively
raised, and eyes like Frisbees! At the end of
each working day there was no sweeter sound than the
clanging of a steel door behind me, me being on the
same side as the keys!
Sometimes I was put in charge of more docile
groups, a few even younger than my twenty-two
years. Several had fried their brains with drugs.
To me they were more tragic than those who, while
insane, had committed heinous crimes.
There were new and often alarming experiences every day.
In the gym one day I was naive enough to toss a
twenty-pound medicine ball to a woman who could have
been a professional wrestler. The first time she
tossed it back the ball slipped through my hands and
hit my chest with a sound like a bass drum. On
regaining my breath I rolled the ball
back to her. This was a mistake! The woman's
second throw bounced me into the wall of the
gymnasium, which then echoed with maniacal
laughter. I persuaded her to change the game
to Ping-Pong.
A much more serious incident occurred on an
institution bus in which we took quieter clients
for trips into the country. I was the allocated
driver on the day that Dolly, a psychotic, was
given her first outing in months. She had been, I
was assured, quite docile in recent weeks.
However, the adventure of the outing proved to be too
much for Dolly. We had just gotten underway when
Dolly seized a huge fistful of my hair and
started to drag me back over the driver's seat.
My hands were unable to reach the steering wheel, my
feet unable to touch the pedals, and my neck
seemed to be within an inch of fracture.
Two assistants aboard rushed to my rescue
and managed to subdue Dolly. The bus, which had
left the road, stalled only one yard from the
trunk of a huge oak tree. My scalp hurt
for a month. It was a close call.
At the end of each workday, my colleagues and
I felt we had not only earned our modest
salaries, but also our right to relax and enjoy
ourselves. Along with several others who held
professional jobs at the Yankton prison
or the mental institution (or, as in my case,
at both), I lived in The Alley, a row of
houses so small that they might have been constructed
for dwarves.
We enjoyed a communal spirit, and perhaps one
reason for my own popularity was that my large and
ancient Ford (the odometer had broken down at
145,000 miles) was sometimes the only vehicle
on The Alley to start up when the thermometer was
below zero! It was also the only car that seemed
capable of plowing its way through two feet of snow
--even with a dozen of us aboard!
"And what about your love life?" asked
Nurse Katy who, when time permitted, had been
catching up on the "autobiography."
I raised my eyebrows (a gesture she may
not have observed). "Love life?"
"Don't play the innocent with me," said
Katy (smiling, I'm sure) as she tucked in
the bedsheets. "When a golden-tanned
California blonde drops out of the sky onto a
South Dakota campus, the guys must have
thought they'd joined Alice in Wonderland."
"Oh, sure," I told her, "there were two
or three guys whose company I enjoyed a lot,
and one I shared poetry with."
"Only poetry?"
"You're far too inquisitive," I told
my favorite nurse and now my friend. "Besides, that
was a long time ago."
Katy clicked a skeptical tongue, sat
on the end of the bed, and asked about Joe.
"Oh, he was much later," I said. "I'd first
known him in college when he'd been married
to his high school sweetheart. Like me, he
graduated as a recreational therapist.
Eventually, he found the job he wanted at the
Braille School in Vinton."
I went on to tell Katy how, after Joe's
divorce, I had met up with him again when he
drove once or twice a month
to Vermillion, half an hour's drive from
Yankton, to see his baby son whom he
adored. At first, I had admired Joe's
dedication to his work. Then we had had a few
dates and watched football and baseball
games together. Then we realized that we had fallen
in love.
"As simple as that?" asked Katy.
"Almost as simple as that," I replied. "But
where are the parents of an only daughter who are
ready to uncork champagne when she shows them an
engagement ring given by a man they've never met?"
Katy surprised me by saying, "I only
wish my parents had cared enough to worry about my
engagement. If they'd done so, I might have had
second thoughts myself and ... heck, there's been a
lot of water under the bridge since that awful
scene."
I reached out a hand to her. "Was it that bad?"
A deep sigh. "Worse," she said. "We
got married in Vegas, and then my Johnny
Ex blew half our honeymoon funds in
Caesar's Palace. He drowned his grief and
my screams of rage in bourbon. As
Shakespeare so succinctly put it, "What
fools these brunettes be!""
"Shakespeare?" I queried.
"Well, substitute "these mortals" for the
brunettes and you've got Puck's exact
quote out of A Midsummer Night's
Dream."
"You're so full of surprises," I told
her.
"Oh, sure," she replied. "Can you forget the
lines you spoke in a convent school play?" She
obviously looked at her watch, for she gasped
and said, "Is that really the time! Mrs.
Whatshername must still be on a bedpan."
She left me laughing so hard that my stomach
hurt.
I was obliged to postpone telling Katy how
my parents had soon come around to accepting Joe and
how in the summer of 1978 Dad had married us in
Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where he had taken up
a new (and his last) ministry.
In the course of Dad's message to us he
said, "I only wish I could promise you a
stormless voyage as you, Joe, and you, my
Joan, set out together. But that I cannot do, because
only God knows what lies ahead for us. What
I can promise is that if you seek God's
navigation for your lives you'll be able to face
whatever storms you might encounter ..."
Now, as I recall and record the words Dad
spoke on that carefree day when I married
Joe, I find myself foolishly wondering whether
we would have been too daunted to make our solemn
vows had we but glimpsed the perils and pain that
lay ahead for both of us.


An Angel Unawares

Mimicking an Indian love call, Nurse
Katy burst through the door of my room. "Big
Chief Bald Eagle's on his way," she
announced, "and I'm just checking to see you don't
have spinach on your earlobes!"
"Do you mind translating?" I requested. It
was a plea I frequently made to Katy, who
had a talent for making mundane duties and other
things sound complex or hilarious.
She removed my lunch tray and then explained
that Dr. Corbett himself and an Indian guy from
the Mayo Clinic ("or somewhere") were on their way
--the nurses' station had just been informed of the VIP
visitors. She added, "And by the way, there's no
spinach on your teeth or your earlobes." We
both giggled. Katy's visits to my ward were
always refreshing.
"What's the Mayo man like?" I
asked.
"Young enough," she responded, "possibly
eligible, wearing a turban. Anyway, I'm not
sure I want to live in Pakistan or
wherever." Another giggle was curtailed when Dr.
Corbett and the Indian physician entered.
Dr. Corbett greeted me with his usual
toe-tweaking. He said, "Good news for you,
Joan." I held my smile because I had heard
him disappointingly utter this phrase before. In the
pause that followed I presumed he was reading my
chart. The only "good news" I was ready
to accept at this point was for him to tell me that his
prognosis had been horribly wrong and that my
eyes would soon be on the mend.
He didn't tell me this, of course. I was
now only too well aware that the prognosis was
grimly correct. I knew that my sight was
limited to the smallest aperture of peripheral
vision which, in certain conditions, allowed me
to distinguish light from dark and the vaguest of shapes and
movements.
What Dr. Corbett did say, almost
jovially, was, "Well, Joan, tomorrow you're
going home!"
In the word "home" there was music, and I
believe it was to that music that I immediately
responded. I felt a surge of blood flush
my cheeks.
Yet all too quickly the music became a
screech of alarm.
I realized that this small room in this huge
hospital had protected me from the real world, a
world created for people with vision; a mobile world of
automobiles, trains, planes, elevators,
and even supermarket carts; a world in which south for
me could as well be north, east as well be west.
In theory I'd known about this visionless world that I
must now face. For five years I'd made a
career of helping a hundred and more children cope with the
most basic demands of living, like the simple
task of laying toothpaste along the bristles of a
brush.
But from tomorrow it would be I who would be blindly feeling
my way beyond the walls and safety of this room.
I'd be having to put my own toothpaste on my
own brush. I'd be having to spread invisible
peanut butter on a slice of invisible bread.
I would be having sightlessly to provision my
home, to dust, to clean ...
As this scary thinking ran amok, Dr.
Corbett must have observed the sudden change in my
expression. He misunderstood my tightened jaw,
or perhaps my sudden clutching of the sheets. His
voice was kind, almost sorrowful, as he said,
"How we wish we could have done more for you, Joan.
Perhaps one day, perhaps within your lifetime, though
doubtfully within mine, we may learn how
to replace dead optical nerves with receptors
that will respond to light and transmit signals
to the brain."
As he spoke to me from the foot of the bed, I
acknowledged that I liked this man who had given
to my case all his accumulated skill and the
wisdom of his long experience. I wanted to thank
him for his efforts to help me, but I didn't
trust my voice. I nodded, though, when he
asked if the visiting Pakistani physician
might examine my eyes with a handheld
ophthalmoscope.
After this brief examination (was it now a
hundred times they'd scanned my eyes through
instruments?), the two men held a brief
conference. Then Dr. Corbett addressed me
again.
He said, "What we are trying to do, Joan,
is to sequence out the pathological proteins in
your case. You'd be surprised at the length of
your clinical and laboratory history. My
colleagues and I--and I include specialists
in hospitals across the country--believe you've
been the victim of a lupuslike ailment."
He went on to explain that, for reasons not yet
understood, women in their third decade were the most
vulnerable to lupus, and that I fell into the
"vulnerable bracket." He emphasized that they
were not labeling my malady lupus, but that "kinship
to lupus had been observed."
Before he left, Dr. Corbett pleaded with
me to make regular outpatient visits to the
hospital to help in the continuing study of my
case. He assured me once again that I had
been "a most cooperative and courageous
patient." Then, in an avuncular tone, he
added, "And the prettiest patient I've seen for a
very long time!" Sensing that he was about to give a
valedictory tweak to my big toe I
protectively hugged my knees.
Then I began to think about going home.
The word "home" (be it spoken in any
language) is, I suppose, among the richest
in our vocabulary, and for most folks it conjures
up so much more than furnishings or the materials from
which it is constructed.
Our home was certainly much more than merely a
white clapboard house (circa 1950) made
affordable by being within train-whistle distance of the
railroad tracks. The house itself was able to keep
out all but the prairie's most bitter blasts of
winter and all but the most stifling heat of summer.
It had become our castle, albeit modest, and
no matter the season, when Joe, Joy, and I
were inside and we had, as it were, pulled up the
drawbridge, we felt removed for a spell from
the cruelties, the ugliness, the pain and perils
of the world. We had clung to the erroneous belief that
when we were at home nothing could threaten us, nothing
could disturb or hinder our smooth, contented, and
rewarding journey into the fresh decades.
In some ways the last but one day of my
hospital stay was my worst. Certainly there had
been days of pain and grieving for my lost sight,
but most of the time I had been marvelously
supported by the love and care of family and friends.
But for one reason or another I had no
visitors on that last afternoon or in the evening, either.
Perhaps this was one reason for my thoughts focusing on
such chilling questions.
At the Braille School I'd become skilled
in teaching sightless others the daily living
skills. How many had I shown how to use the
sensitive skin on the back of the hand to pour salt
from a shaker into a bowl of soup or stew. How many
had I shown how to use a cane to move around
furniture, to walk a street, to find one's
way across a campus. How many had I shown how
to arrange clothes in a closet for their easy
choosing.
But could the teacher now teach herself?
I was ashamed that I'd seen my hospital
ward as a sort of security blanket. Yet
I was unable to put aside the thought that I had
survived these past weeks because there were people at my
beck and call, and that my every need was met. Even
eating had been made simple. At mealtimes there
was an aide or orderly there to bone the chicken or
to cut steak into small, chewable pieces.
Joe was at his office when I phoned with the
news that I would be ready to be picked up at ten
the following morning. There was obviously
somebody with him, because his response was crisp and
businesslike. A neighbor would baby-sit for
Joy and he would come alone.
I was tempted to call Mom and Dad to ask
them if they could manage to drive to Vinton once
again and help lead me gently into a new
lifestyle, a new world. But before it became too
seductive, I put this temptation behind me.
I believe I spoke aloud to an empty
room--and, if I did so, it was through gritted
teeth--when I declared, "No, I'm going to do it
myself! Blind as I am, I'm going to be a good
wife and a good mother and perhaps a good teacher still." The
help I would most need would be God's alone
to give.
The hours following Dr. Corbett's visit
were among the strangest and most stressful of my
stay in the hospital. Following moments of high
resolve, I would have spells of such turmoil that
I would thump my temples with my palms. I
asked myself if I was going crazy--as crazy as
some of those women at the Yankton mental
institution, women who had lost touch with reality.
It was within the span of one of my worst spells
that Katy looked in on me. Her joke died on
her lips as she marked my distress.
"Oh, Joan," she exclaimed, "what's the
matter? ... I'd expected you to be elated by the
news of your going home."
I turned my face into the pillow and began
to sob. "I'm so scared, Katy," I told
her. "How am I going to manage?"
Katy did her best to reassure me, but when
she saw that she was making no progress she
consulted with the floor's senior nurse, who sent
out calls for a resident psychologist and a
chaplain.
Shortly both visited me, though not together.
I'm sure they gave me their best advice, but
I have no recollection of what it was.
It was eventually Mrs. O'Leary who came
to my rescue. She must have been on her ten o'clock
break when I heard that soft Irish voice at
my bedside.
"So it's been your toughest day, I'm
guessin'," she said, "and that's because tomorrow you're
goin' home." She sat on the bed and grasped
both my hands.
"Did they tell you?" I asked.
"No, I don't need to be told,"
she said. "I've seen a lot of patients
who've suddenly lost their sight--auto
accidents, young 'uns playin' around with guns--you
name it. I've seen the bravest come apart at the
seams on the day they're told they're goin'
home. What frightens them--what's scarin' you,
darlin'--is how to make it on the outside. Am
I right?"
"Oh yes, yes," I whispered as I leaned
forward into Mrs. O'Leary's ample bosom and
soaked the lapels of her cleaning-lady uniform with
tears. She stroked my hair, patted my
back, rocked me, and cooed soothingly into my
ear.
"There, there, me darlin', you're goin' to be just
fine, and the good Lord will still be wantin' to use your
love and all your learnin'."
With my crying under some control I told her,
"You're wonderful, Mrs. O'Leary. You could
be giving lessons to the psychologists and some of the
chaplains, too."
She snorted, "Get along with you, darlin'.
I was but fourteen when I leave school. Had
to help me mother run the farm in County Kerry--that
were after me dad died. I was milkin' five cows
and churnin' cream afore I were ten years old. Not
much time for book learnin'. But I'd like to tell
these chaplains somethin'; I'd tell them to make
their rounds and come a-visitin' at three in the
mornin', not at three in the afternoon. That be the hour
they're most needed."
She chuckled so deeply that the bed shook.
"Tell the truth, sometimes I feel more like a
chaplain than a cleanin' woman. Course I'm
raised Catholic, yer know. I doubt if the
Holy Father in Rome would give much thought
to makin' me a chaplain." Another wonderful
laugh, and so infectious that I joined her.
She heaved herself off the bed, and from the way it
sagged when she had sat down I guessed she
weighed in at over two hundred pounds. I
painted her face on the canvas of my mind.
She surely had three chins, Irish rosy
cheeks, and blue-button eyes that almost
disappeared when she laughed.
"Best be goin'," she said.
I was so reluctant to let her go that I felt
for her hand, but I realized that she was at the door.
From there she turned and said, "I'll be lookin'
in on you later, darlin', to see how
you're farin'." A new thought struck her. She
asked, "How's that story of yours goin'?"
On one of her earlier visits to my room I
had told her of how, for essentially therapeutic
reasons, I had spent wakeful hours trying
to recapture the events of my life. She had
been so intrigued that she had said she would pass the
idea on to other patients.
Now I told her that I had not made much
headway lately. Weighed down by the challenges
of going home, I was not inclined to get back to the
story.
"Ah, no, darlin'," she said, "you need
somethin' to be thinkin' about this night--somethin' good.
Now tell me what be the happiest day of your
life? A Christmas, maybe? Your weddin'
day, likely?" She chuckled. "Ah, you're
already smilin' as you think about a happy day. What
is it you're thinkin', darlin'?"
My answer was firm. "I'm thinking about the day
my daughter Joy was born," I told her.
"There you are!" said Mrs. O'Leary
triumphantly. "Tonight you be givin' yourself a
treat. Keep your mind on sweetness. You be
thinkin' about that little lass of yours, and she'll be
leadin' you to dreamland."
After she had closed the door, I heard the
sound of Mrs. O'Leary collecting her cleaning
equipment and then the flapping of her slippered
footsteps retreating down the hall.
I took Mrs. O'Leary's advice. I
thought about my daughter.
Joe and I were two years into our marriage when
Joy was born. Although I remained healthy, I
could not free myself of a deep concern, at times
closer to a phobia, that my baby would be born with
some physical defect.
I should have shared this foolish concern with my
physician. Had I done so I would have learned
that it is a pregnancy problem not uncommon
among women who work with the physically and mentally
disabled.
There was no moment in my life of greater
relief and exaltation than when the doctor who
delivered my daughter told me that she was
normal in every respect--"not just ten toes and
brown eyes, but absolutely perfect!"
Mrs. O'Leary's soporific worked
marvelously. On my last night in the
hospital I enjoyed the most restful
sleep I had had since being admitted as an
inpatient.
I was dressed and ready well before Joe
arrived at ten o'clock the next morning. When he
phoned from the lobby to say he was signing the
insurance documents and discharge papers, I felt
so good that I told the senior nurse I wanted
to make my own way to the entrance to meet my
husband.
"Certainly not," said the senior nurse
(unfortunately, it was Katy's day off duty).
"You'll find you're much weaker than you imagine.
Besides, it's a hospital rule that patients must
be wheeled out in chairs." There was an unintended
sting when she added, "Your husband's got to get
used to waiting on you."
When Joe reached my room, a couple of other
nurses came to say good-bye. An orderly had
my suitcase. Everyone, including Joe, was
awkwardly hearty.
"Sure you've got everything?" Joe asked as
he swung the chair to the door.
"Can't help you there," I replied.
I was conscious of Joe glancing about him before
he said, "There's a card or something on the
nightstand. Do you want it?"
The nurses were obviously eager to be about their
business and I was anxious to be on my way.
"I've no idea what it is," I told him.
"Probably just a tissue."
Joe picked up what he described as a
folded piece of lined paper carrying a penciled
note. He asked me if I wanted him to read
it and I told him to go ahead.
He read: "Good-bye, darling lass. Glad
to see you sleeping like a babe. To have a vision you
don't need no eyes. Your heart will tell you
what to do. I'll be praying for you. The Lord has
good sweetness and blessings for you. I be sure of
this."
An embarrassed silence followed. I put out
my hand to Joe for Mrs. O'Leary's note, and
I pushed it into the pocket of my jacket. It
has been a sadness for me that somehow the note
written on cheap paper was lost. It may have been
left in the jacket pocket when it was sent to the
cleaners.
But Mrs. O'Leary's prophecy--for that's
what it seemed like to me--was so etched into my mind
that I was to recall it again and again, word for
word, as my future unfolded--into a time of
anguish beyond my reckoning, and a time of sublime
contentment beyond my imagining.


But Why Not Me?

As we drove home on that crisp,
mid-March morning in 1984, I could sense
immediately that something was seriously troubling Joe, and
that whatever it was, it was creating strain between us. I
knew that it couldn't be his proximity to a blind
person, for he had lived and worked for seven years
with people with vision loss. Joe's chatter about
inconsequential things and the pitch of his voice
convinced me he was evading some issue that he really
needed to talk about.
My first guess was wrong. I asked, "Are you
as concerned as I am, Joe, that I'm going to be
a burden to you?"
Had I struck him his reaction could hardly have
been sharper. He shouted, "For Pete's sake,
Joan, how can someone I love be a burden?"
I leaned across the seat and put my cheek against
his arm. "Thank you, honey, that's wonderful
to hear," I told him.
"I mean it," he said quietly.
"Oh, I know you do," I said, and then I
pressed the question: "But there is something on your mind,
Joe." I allowed a ten-second pause before
I added, "Isn't there?" The addendum triggered
a response.
"Yup. Okay. I've been asking myself why
the heck you?"
"Me what?"
"You know what I mean," he said, his voice
rising. "Why the heck should you be ... be ..."
"Blind! Say the word, Joe. I've gotten
used to saying it about myself."
He slowed the car. I thought he was going to pull
it to the side of the highway, but apparently there was
traffic ahead. I could smell diesel fumes.
His lighter mood was now gone. Almost harshly
he replied, "I can say the word "blind" and all
the euphemisms--sightless, vision loss, you name
it. No, what I want to know is why you?" He
sucked in his breath, a recognized signal that
anger was surging. I knew he needed to express
his deepest feelings--angrily, if that would
help.
He continued loudly, "There are more than two
hundred and fifty million people wandering about this
country and most of them have never given a damn about
helping blind kids, about helping anybody. Why
should you be singled out to lose your sight? That's what
I don't understand. It's pretty hard to talk
about a loving God when this happens. The woman
who wrote that note to you--the one you asked me
to read--did she have any answers? Oh, sure,
she's going to pray for you--I've no quarrel with
that. You know, I was raised Catholic, but I
never heard any priest or nun explain why the
best people, often the most caring people, get slapped down
the hardest. You asked me what's worrying me.
It's not just worrying me. It's been tearing at
my guts. Why you, Joan? Why you? For
God's sake, why you?" His last phrase was
bellowed.
He was breathing heavily. I wasn't sure
what to say--not immediately. My mind was jumbled,
confused, scared. Silently, I asked God
to help me give Joe some sort of acceptable
or helpful answer. One thought came to mind like a
quick benediction.
Softly I said, "Joe, the only answer I
have is, "Why not me?"'"
When he didn't respond I continued, "If
I were to imagine that I'm so good that nothing bad should
happen to me, wouldn't I be putting myself above
everyone else? What I definitely don't
believe is that God is punishing me. If I
believed that, then I'd be questioning my faith.
We're not living in heaven. We're living in an
imperfect world."
When I paused, Joe interjected, "Go on.
I need to hear this." His voice had quieted.
I said, "I think the answer is just that
simple, honey. Why not me?"
A long silence was broken when I said, "I
suppose almost everyone who is, as you put it,
slapped down hard, is strongly tempted to ask,
"Why me?"' I'm thinking of Mr. and Mrs.
Holman who lost their only child to leukemia last
year. You remember them. A lovely couple who
live in that house near the post office--the one with a
prize rose garden. They'd waited twenty
years for that child. Then it was taken. I think the little
boy was only nine."
Joe made no comment, so I continued. "I
guess that little girl who was raped and
murdered out there on the Waterloo road never had
a chance to ask, "Why me?"'"
"But the girl's parents did," interjected
Joe.
"Yes, I guess they did," I agreed.
""Why us?"' But their question didn't bring the little
girl back. And you know what Mrs. Holman
did when her little boy died? She's now got
half a dozen little boys. She's one of our most
loyal volunteers at the Braille School. She
spends hours with that autistic kid, Terry."
We were silent for a while; I was praying
silently that my answer to the "Why me?" question had
satisfied Joe. Oh please God, help
Joe--help both of us--not to be bitter, never
to be bitter.
These thoughts were so earnest in my mind that I was
hardly conscious of speaking aloud when I said,
"I'm hoping that in some way my loss of sight can
be used for the good of others."
I was aware of Joe turning his face toward
me. Was he thinking about my answer? I yearned
to see his expression. I said, "Obviously
there'll be things I'll have to do differently, like
getting Joy to school. But I believe the Braille
School kids might feel they've got a staff
member who better understands their challenges and
difficulties."
Joe asked, "You really want to go back to the
school?" He was genuinely surprised.
"Absolutely," I said emphatically. "I
shall beg and plead and smile."
Joe reached out with his right hand and touched my
knee. "The smile alone should do it," he said.
I was glad that his anger had waned, perhaps some of his
worry, too.
In a non sequitur he now told me that some
of the trees were already in bud. For both of us,
springtime was our favorite season. I had a
spasm of heart pain as I reflected that for the first
time I wouldn't see the April greening of the town
--nor the tulips and daffodils in the park, nor
...
I jerked my mind away from these negative
thoughts. In one of my more enlightened moments at the
hospital I had solemnly promised myself that
I would never, but never, allow myself to be sucked
into self-pity, not only for my own sake but for
Joe's and Joy's--and indeed for everyone I
encountered. I had seen how indulging in
self-pity was a tortuous route to losing love and
friendship. A few streets distant from our home a
once popular and vital woman had destroyed
her marriage and her relationships with her family
and friends when she became so embittered by a
mastectomy that she had alienated herself from the kind
of healing care and contact she most needed.
I opened the car window and allowed the clean air
of the prairie to play on my face and stream through
my hair. I surprised Joe when I told
him I knew exactly where we were.
A short laugh now. "Have you been kidding us
all along?" he asked.
"I'm learning to make use of my other
senses," I told him. "A couple of minutes
back we hit that big pothole that should have been
filled in a year ago. I've just picked up the
smell of coffee from what has to be Hank's
Diner. That means that hideous wrecked-car dump
must be out on the left. Correct?"
"Almost," said Joe admiringly. "We've just
passed the wreck dump."
"Well, that's one thing I'm glad I won't
have to see again," I told him.
"Do you want a running commentary on the view
through the windshield?" he asked. "We had a
light snowfall yesterday. There are still patches of
white on north-facing roofs."
My throat tightened. "No," I told him,
"I'm not quite ready for a travel talk. It just
makes me feel--well--too nostalgic or
something."
We didn't speak again as we drove through the
pretty town. I tried to picture the red
bricks, the neat shops, the 250-year-old oak
trees with their gnarled trunks and still bare limbs,
a glint of light from the river, now probably in
spate. A couple of minutes later Joe
swung the car left and the sound of gravel under the
tires told me I was home at last.
Then Joy was in my arms. As we entered the
house I picked up the perfume of spring
flowers, perhaps hothouse grown, and the smell of
Irish stew, doubtless the gift of a colleague
or friend.
Joy pushed a vase of daffodils under my
nose. I breathed in the scent. "Beautiful,"
I told her. An obviously nervous
baby-sitter read a florist card's message
from Joe's folks. Then Joy was
lifting up a pot of sweet-smelling hyacinths
and the baby-sitter helped her describe the
pastel colors.
"There are some more flowers in the dining room and
upstairs," said Joy, who was jumping up and down
as if she were riding a pogo stick. Joe now
read the names and messages from other cards.
Louise, my dearest California friend, had wired
flowers to me, as had both my brothers and their
wives.
It was all too much too soon. Like the almost
overpowering perfume of the flowers, I felt
overwhelmed by love--indeed, I would have fallen had
I not grasped the banister.
"I need to rest for a while," I said. "They
warned me at the hospital that my legs would
feel wobbly for a time. It's great to be home."
I pulled myself up the stairs and, quite drained,
flopped on the big bed. Joe left for his
duties at the school. Joy snuggled next
to me for a few restless minutes. It was good to hold
my daughter in my arms again, but I was relieved
when she left to play with a friend.
In the now quiet house I recalled that
summer six years earlier when I had arrived in
Vinton as Joe's bride. Joe had been working
at the Braille School for a couple of years and already
seemed to have made friends with half the community. He
was a valued member of a basketball team and a
softball team, both made up of school workers
and local business and professional men.
I recalled, too, the first day of my being
employed at the Braille School. I was appointed
housemother of a dorm of ten legally blind boys whose
ages ranged from six to eleven. Two older,
experienced (though unqualified) aides who were
to work under me were understandably nettled over having
to take orders from a naive, though college
educated, twenty-six-year-old who had had little
experience of caring for sighted children and no understanding at
all of how to help blind children become civilized
citizens.
Fortunately I'd had enough sense to recognize
that I would fail miserably at my job unless
I could win the confidence and perhaps the friendship of the two
motherly aides who would have to be my principal
teachers.
Actually, while lying in my bedroom and
remembering my first days at the Braille School and
my bridal days and nights with Joe,
I fell asleep. But in telling my story this
seems to be as good a place as any to speak of
my professional work.


Born of the Heart

The job of looking after ten small boys for
eight hours a day--especially when they were unable
to run away--had sounded simple enough. I was
to find out differently.
I had not been aware, either, that many children born
blind are multi-impaired, for blindness is often
caused by prenatal problems or birth
traumas. In the dorm to which I had been
assigned housemother, five of the young boys were not
only legally blind but were handicapped in other ways,
too. One was autistic, another mildly
retarded, a third was obliged to wear leg
braces, a fourth had to use a wheelchair, and
another had the use of only one hand.
While all the boys were legally blind (meaning that
the mildest case had vision of only twenty over
two hundred), about half had (as I now did)
some light perception from peripheral or minimal
central vision.
I had immediately turned to the two motherly aides,
confessed my ignorance, and pleaded for their help in
teaching me how to care for the boys. The training I
needed is not found in textbooks. The effective
caring for and bringing up of blind children is a skill born
of the heart and consolidated only by hands-on
experience.
Indeed, my very first lesson was as simple as
teaching a sightless child how to make his bed. One of
my aides demonstrated hand-over-hand instruction
on tucking in a sheet, smoothing a blanket, and
correctly placing a pillow.
By watching his mother, a sighted child can learn to make
a bed in two or three sessions. A blind child
might take six months before making a bed that
doesn't look like the bottom of a laundry
chute.
The same patience, I learned, was needed in
showing a blind child how to tie a shoelace, how to keep
himself clean, the effective use of toilet
paper, the sorting of clothes, and so on.
One of the toughest lessons for a blind child is
learning to eat without resembling a zoo primate.
The kids were invariably hungry, and
taste is one of the heightened sensual pleasures
when sight is lost. Of course the boys could not
see each other, and they had little interest in
impressing sighted table attendants. Yet
training in eating in a mannerly fashion--using,
for example, a hunk of bread as a "pusher" to the
fork--is among the most important learning
experiences for a blind child if he is to be socially
acceptable.
The instruction and care at the Braille School
occupied twenty-four hours a day. The dorm
teaching of self-sufficiency was no less
important than the classroom teaching. Although
I was in charge of the dorm, I didn't sleep
there myself. My hours of work usually coincided with
Joe's. Both of us went into action when
academic classes were over for the day.
Although my early official
responsibilities were limited to domestic care
and social skills, it had seemed very
important to me to learn all I could about the
classroom teaching and other activities of the children.
Joe taught me much, of course.
The highest peak of excitement for most of the children
was to go camping under Joe's leadership. I would
tag along, too, and found the experience
fascinating--like watching kids, boys and girls,
put up their own tents. Many sighted campers could
have learned a lesson in the importance of, for
example, a tight guy rope. Joe taught
them to fish the streams and lakes, to manage a
boat, to identify woodland sounds, and so on.
He was very firm with any child who did not measure
up to what he believed was his full capability.
I was pained to see one child in tears after Joe had
scolded him. When I had protested his severity,
Joe had pointed out that he may have saved the child from
death or injury because the boy had crossed a
street without listening for traffic. He always gave
a big hug to a child he had reprimanded.
At one of my early activities at the
school Joe gave me a lesson I needed and
one that I would not forget. His recreation department was
holding the annual St. Valentine's dance at which
the Sweetheart King and Queen were to be crowned.
The students themselves voted for what was the
equivalent of homecoming king and queen. Since
football was obviously not a Braille School
sport, Valentine's Day was set aside for the
election of the students' royalty.
I had, by now, gotten to know a good many of the
120 students on campus, but there were still a few
I had not befriended. Among these was Joyce, a
girl with rounded shoulders, buck teeth, bulging and
very obviously sightless eyes, and mouse-colored
hair so thin that her scalp was visible.
The election count and crowning ceremony were being
held at the gymnasium, and Joe was emceeing the
occasion. Excitement mounted as Joe came to the
mike to declare that the vote had finally been tallied.
The name of the king was no surprise. He was a
tall and handsome youth who had done well both in
wrestling and academics. Then Joe announced the
name of the queen. I couldn't believe what I
heard.
Her! I thought, as the gym rocked with cheers.
Joyce, who was just about the plainest girl on
campus, had been chosen by her peers to reign
over the festivities!
When, later, I had mentioned to Joe my
surprise at the choice of the queen, he had
tartly retorted, "Honey, you haven't learned
yet that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and on
this campus the kids look more than skin deep."
The classroom teachers were more amazed than
amused when I started to turn up in their
classrooms. I did so, not to learn about
United States presidents, nor the names of the
Canadian provinces, nor yet the rudiments
of math, but because I felt it important to understand
what the kids were being taught and how they were being
taught. I needed this knowledge if I was going to be able
to help them with homework or other projects. One
veteran teacher told me that I was the first dorm
parent to sit in on a classroom lesson.
I also felt it was important to learn braille,
which I did in my spare time. It is not all that
easy to translate the dots that make up the braille
alphabet into letters, phrases, and pages, but in
due course I became a certified braillist.
My understanding of braille came in handy when I
began classroom teaching. Then I took some blind
students to the public schools downtown. This was
known as "mainstreaming," and it was the aim to give as
many as possible of the Braille School children an
opportunity to study at, even graduate from,
public schools.
Being able to read and write braille allowed me
to transcribe the homework instructions of a
public school teacher into notes that could
be understood by the blind students, and then
to transcribe the work written by the blind students in
braille back into phrases that could be understood by the
public school teachers.
I loved my work, initially as a dorm parent,
later in a classroom setting, and then as a
professional liaison staff person between the
dorms and the classrooms, a job which also kept
me in close touch with the parents and families of the
children.
I joyfully discovered my own wellspring of
compassion, and I found myself especially drawn to the
kids most in need of time and tender loving care.
I had not before experienced a richer reward than that
of seeing a child's development and progress
following hours, days, or weeks of patient and
sometimes painful instruction.
The blind children unwittingly gave me lessons which
were to prove priceless in my own unforeseeable
years ahead--lessons in patience, perseverance,
and humor.
One of my dorm boys was a mischievous but
lovable ten-year-old named Blake. It was
Blake who owned a whoopee cushion that emitted
rude noises when sat upon. (he caught me
three times with this one.) It was Blake who brought
a couple of caged white mice back from a
vacation, and then let them loose in the dorm. It
was Blake who was always being reprimanded for using
"dirty words." I don't think he knew the
meanings of most of them, but he loved to shock the
staff.
One day I was assigned to take Blake to the
University of Iowa Hospital's
ophthalmology department (the very same!) to be
fitted with new prosthetic eyes. As a child
grows, so do his eye sockets, hence the need
to replace prosthetics from time to time.
Appointments were running well behind schedule.
As Blake and I waited in a room filled with
perhaps forty people, many of them elderly, the boy became
restless. He asked me how everyone else was
killing time. I mentioned that they were reading
magazines. Blake discovered a magazine rack
next to his seat. A few moments later I was
aware of a heavy silence in the waiting room.
Glancing over the top of my journal I saw that
all eyes were fixed on Blake. He had
removed one of his glass eyes and he was now
holding it delicately between thumb and
forefinger as he pressed it against a magazine
page.
"Blake!" I exclaimed. "Put it back
now!"
Before popping the glass eye back into its
socket, Blake gave the room his best
urchin's grin and said, "Too bad! I can see so
much better that way!" He seemed genuinely
disappointed that nobody laughed. But Blake and
I giggled all the way home.
Another boy who besieged and conquered the inner
chambers of my heart was Terry, who had been
rejected by his wealthy parents--obviously because
he restricted their lifestyle. Terry had a
bewitching lisp. To him I was always "Mith"
Beringer and his struggle to pronounce
Mississippi left a geography class in
an uproar.
Perhaps the toughest of my duties in the course of
my five sighted years at the Braille School was
to receive the new children. Mostly they came to us at the
age of five or six, some older, a few younger.
Most stayed at the school until their late
teens.
It was beyond my ability to imagine what went on
in the mind of a child when he became aware that he was
being abandoned by his parents--the couple who had,
since his birth, protected and guided him through the
darkness of his existence.
I did see the agony on the faces of most
parents when they handed over their child to the school's
keeping. I could almost hear the parents asking themselves
how they could conceive of giving guardianship of their
beloved child to a young, blonde girl who, to them,
looked as if she should be playing tennis, skiing,
or lying on a beach! Indeed, there was one occasion
when a father ran back and would have snatched his son from
me had he not been restrained by his wife.
Unfortunately, there were rare exceptions
to parental love. I happened to be within earshot
when I heard one couple already whooping it up as
they returned to their new Jaguar. From the distance
I could hear the screams of the little girl they had
dumped at one of the other dorms. These parents were
obviously thrilled at being able to return to their
social life, no longer fettered by having to care
for their handicapped child.
The Braille School was designed to be a home
away from home. The main building was constructed in
the last mid-century, and the mellowed
walls seemed to carry a patina of caring and
healing. When I was appointed to the liaison
position, one of my duties was to take parents and
other visitors on a tour of the buildings and
to give a presentation on how the children would be helped
and cared for. I did so proudly because the school was
not only handsomely furnished and equipped with
state-of-the-art facilities, but it was also staffed
by exceptional people.
By the fall of 1983 life was great. In my
liaison position I was doing the work I most
enjoyed, work that kept me in close touch with the children,
their parents, the dorm staff, and the teaching staff.
I was often invited to give presentations on the work
of the school to service clubs, church groups,
women's associations, and the like.
I put together a program that I felt helped
people to comprehend what it was like to be blind or seriously
visually impaired. For these lectures I took
along a suitcase full of equipment, including
braille books, slate and stylus (the process
students used for taking notes), beeper balls
and beeper Frisbees, talking calculators and
gogglelike glasses that distorted a lens to give
tunnel vision to the partially sighted.
As for the Joy of my heart, as I always thought of
our blonde, effervescent daughter, she was well
out of babyhood and becoming her own engaging
personality.
We were really a quartet, because Jay, my
stepson, spent so many weekends with us and was
fully embraced into the family.
Each day, when I counted my blessings, I ran
out of fingers, and each Sunday, when I gave
thanks for them at church, I almost ran out of
amens. Of course, I had known from first memory
that God was in His heaven, and I now had every reason
to believe that all was right with my world.
Christmas of 1983 came in with the merry sound
of carols and sleigh bells. Joe and I
welcomed in a new year of high promise--
hailed 1984 with a kiss and champagne and in the
company of wonderful friends.
Then came that bitter morning in January, the
day before my thirty-second birthday, the day when
I was dressing my daughter for her preschool, the
morning when Joy's pink socks looked white,
so strangely white!


Sparrows and Grandmother's Bowl

A few days before Joy's pink socks had
seemingly been drained of their color--that first
sign that my life's trail was dipping rapidly
from sunlight into twilight--I had made a
promise to the Braille School's peewee wrestling
team that I would be at their annual match against their
number one rival, a school about ten miles from
Vinton.
Nothing and no one could have stopped me from keeping
this promise. As I reflected sardonically
to Joe across the breakfast table, this was to be my
"first firm blind date." In fact, I'd been
home from the hospital only three days when the
date for the big match came up. By phone I
made arrangements with the bus driver to swing around
to our home after he had collected the peewee
team and their supporters at a dorm.
As soon as I heard the crunching of gravel
under the bus tires I went outside the front
door. The bus driver jumped out to give me a
guiding elbow, but before he did so I was aware of a
little figure alongside him. Then a small,
sticky hand gripped my own and a very familiar
lisping voice said, "X'th me, Terry, Mith
Beringer. I juth wanted to tell you how very thorry
I am about your eyes. I gueth all we can do,
Mith Beringer, ith to hope."
I felt so absolutely overwhelmed by the little
boy's sympathy that I choked up. Terry, now
eight, and who, as I remembered so well,
looked like an angel, had lost his sight in an
appalling accident when he was an infant. But here
he was, grasping my hand, giving me his
compassion.
"Oh, Terry, Terry," I cried, "how
wonderful you are." I knelt down in a patch of
melting snow and hugged him. "You won't understand
what I mean, Terry, but in your heart you've
got the answer to so much of the pain, the misery and the
grief in the whole wide world."
The other kids who had remained in the bus
gave me such a warm welcome, too. Their
calls came to me like tossed rose petals.
"Welcome back, Mrs. B.! I hope the
doctors were nice to you. We missed you very much.
We love you, Mrs. B."
The natural humorist, Blake,
wasn't joking when he said, "You're kind of like
one of us now, Mrs. B."
In all my time at the Braille School I'd not
experienced such a feeling of camaraderie. Yes,
I told myself, we are in it together, bonded by our
special challenges, our frustrations, our longing
to make it in the sighted world.
Wrestling is one of the very few sports that the blind
can participate in and enjoy. There have been some
outstanding amateur blind wrestlers. Here I would like
to report that my peewee team won their match
against their old rivals but they didn't, and this time
they lost--in spite of my cheering myself hoarse from
the bleachers of a gymnasium.
On our journey back to Vinton, we talked
about winning and losing, and how losing could be a spur
in the flank. Indeed, our dialogue on the bus
home could have been a locker room morale
booster at a superbowl.
In those first days and weeks at home there were
moments when I felt lost, beaten and depressed,
but Terry's lisped encouragement--"All we can
do ith to hope"--rang out in my head like an
encouraging cry from the bleachers. I would falter and
fail many times, but I promised myself that I would
always pick myself up and go back into the fight. Then
I would experience a surge of strength and
confidence. I would, I told myself, never, never
give up.

Understandably, Joy was initially very confused by my
inability to help find things she had mislaid--
her crayons, for example, or a picture
book. But there were other activities, such as
bathing her, that I could manage with the same
facility as I had had before losing my sight.
Especially for our small daughter's sake,
both Joe and I made every effort to keep laughter
in our home. Joe could, for example, pull
pennies out of his ears and then make his ears
wiggle. One evening when I was bathing Joy,
Joe came home from work.
"Hi, girls!" he said cheerily as he pushed
open the bathroom door.
"Hi, honey!" "Hi, Daddy!" we
responded.
As Joe approached he pretended to trip on
a throw rug. A moment later he was sitting
fully clothed in the bath facing Joy who was,
of course, squealing with laughter. Years
later, when Joy recalls this Chaplinesque
scene, her laughter is still close to hysterical.
Memory shortens the months and, sometimes, the
years, but another recollection of Joe's
creative ways of bringing fun and excitement to our
home now comes to mind.
This incident was in midwinter and Jay was spending
the weekend with us. Joe announced that the whole
family was going to go camping. Outside, the snow
was lying piled high.
"Camping!" we exclaimed in unison.
"No problem," said Joe. "We'll camp in
the family room."
And so we did, Jay and Joy setting up their
own small tents, which were furnished with sleeping
bags. A pizza supper was ordered by phone and the
only light permitted was from the blazing log
fire. Joe and I slept on a pull-out couch.
It was not difficult to imagine that we were out in the
prairies and that we could hear the howling of
wolves.
When Mom and Dad came to visit I think
they were properly impressed on finding the
housekeeping running so smoothly. I showed them
how I arranged Joy's clothes and my own in
closets so that I could find them readily. I
demonstrated the arrangement of food in the
refrigerator and in the kitchen cupboards. I
could find and reach for a carton of milk or a box
of rice as easily as I could have done had I
been sighted--unless, as too often happened,
Joe or someone else had put the staples back
in the wrong places.
Joe feigned amusement on taking over
grocery shopping. He expressed glee when he
found bargains.
Friends and neighbors rallied round, too. A
knock on the front door and the smell of
hamburgers or roast chicken heralded the
arrival of yet another nourishing meal.
I was learning, too, how to use my white
cane effectively. I had taught so many children
mobility and how to tap their way to a classroom
or up a flight of stairs that I had a head
start as I began to use a cane myself.
It was a victorious day for me when I first
walked downtown unaccompanied. No place was
far distant in little Vinton, but Joe was concerned
when I announced that I was going to walk to the
pharmacy to purchase what was
euphemistically called "feminine hygiene." I
guessed Joe would be embarrassed by having to make
such a purchase.
When I set out I insisted that I didn't
want any help at all. I suspected that
Joe followed me at least some of the way. If
he did so, he didn't let on.
I had, of course, walked the route from home
to the shopping area very often in the past--one block
east, one block north, then four blocks east.
Now mobility skills would be fully tested.
In a manner I had previously prescribed for
others, I swung my cane from fence to gutter.
Ah, yes, I told myself, here's the fire
hydrant near the second corner, and this is where
the roots of that big tree are breaking through the
concrete pavement--a place requiring special
care--and that barking has to come from the Restons'
German shepherd. Here's the corner where I
turn left. Okay! Now four blocks east.
Remember to count them.
Fortunately, the sight of a blind person tapping
his or her way down a Vinton street was not
rare. As I approached the shopping area I was
conscious of people stepping out of my way. When
crossing a street I listened carefully for
traffic, then took advantage of the offer of the arm
of a female stranger. Otherwise I made the
short walk unaided.
Was this the door to the pharmacy or the
shoe-repair shop? I pushed it open. The friendly
and familiar voice of the pharmacist greeted me.
My sigh was not so much one of relief as one
hailing a personal victory. I did it
by myself! Wow! Marathon winners or
cross-Channel swimmers could not have experienced
a warmer glow of glory!
Another early thrill was to be told by the
school's top administrators that they wanted me
to keep my professional job as liaison staff
person. I would continue to link the dorm staff to the
teaching staff. But since there were some duties that I
would now be incapable of undertaking I was given a
few different responsibilities. Among these
was to spend a couple or more evenings a week in
charge of the study period at the library.
It was in the library that students, particularly
those taking classes at the public schools, could
find a quiet place for homework and, at the
same time, make use of a wide
selection of reference books--typically talking
encyclopedias.
When practical, and when asked, I would try
to give students help with homework, but increasingly
I would encounter students who came to the library
simply to talk to a staff person who, as one of
them put it, "really understands what being blind is all
about."
One evening when on my library stint, I was
approached by Betty, an exceptionally
intelligent sixteen-year-old who, since her
arrival at the school, had been first in her
class. But as she approached the corner table where
I usually sat, she was obviously distressed.
Eventually Betty blurted out, "An
absolutely awful thing happened to me today in the
lab."
"Tell me about it," I said softly.
A shuddering sob came from Betty before she
uttered the word "birds."
"Birds!"
Three tissues later she whispered, "It was
so humiliating; I'd always thought that birds were about
the size of my thumb. But in the biology lab
they've got a stuffed seagull and a stuffed crow.
I couldn't believe what I was feeling. They were
the size of ... of my head!"
I still couldn't fathom the reason for Betty's
tears, and I said so.
"But don't you see, Mrs. Beringer, I thought
I was pretty smart, and today I realized how
ignorant I am. I thought that because birds go
"cheep-cheep-cheep" they had to be tiny.
I've been getting straight A's in math,
English, history, and geography, and yet I
didn't know that ... Well, I felt I should be
thrown back into kindergarten."
It was a new lesson for me on how little
understanding those born blind have of dimensions. Unless it
has been explained to them or unless they have been
able to measure things themselves, those born blind have little
conception of shapes and sizes.
It was very different for me, because memory came
instantly to my aid when someone mentioned a church
steeple, say, or an oil tanker or a tree
or an ostrich or whatever.
That evening and in many evenings that followed,
Betty and I had fascinating discussions on the
sizes of things. Since she was taking a course in
biology she was particularly interested in
animals. To explain the reach of a giraffe I
took her to a wall in the library and asked her
to stretch her hands above her head. I explained
how, when a giraffe was munching leaves from a
tree, it could reach up to four or five more times
than the distance between Betty's fingers and her toes.
She was quite stunned by this revelation.
We had a speculative and philosophical
discussion as to whether it was better or worse to be
born blind, as Betty was, or to lose one's
sight when one was older.
"I don't know what I miss," submitted
Betty.
"And I miss so much of what I used to see,"
I told her, giving an example of how, the
previous morning, Joy had spoken about the
clouds "looking like lambs playing in a blue
field."
I said, "I ached to see not only what my
daughter was looking at, but to see her animated
face as she gazed upward at the scudding
clouds."
"Ah," said Betty, claiming some
advantage. "I never have those yearnings. How can
you miss what you've never had?"
"Oh no," I responded, "I'm the lucky
one. Someone speaks of--what?--an owl flying
over a field, and I've got an instant
picture in my mind--a moving picture, at
that. I see not only the flap of the owl's wings but
the blue-green fir trees it's heading for."
I didn't want to press my argument because I
felt sure that Betty--and everyone who is born
blind--is far less fortunate than those who lose
their sight when they are past early childhood. For
instance, in the days when I was sighted, one of the
toughest teaching lessons was to persuade children who had
been born blind to make appropriate facial
expressions--expressions they had never seen. I
think especially of Robbie, who took long
months to learn to smile. When he came to us he
had a grimace that scared young sighted children. Our
task was to help give Robbie's smile warmth
and humor.
In any event, Betty proved to be a quick
learner. Although she wasn't able to call on
memories of things once seen, she eventually
graduated cum laude from a university, and today
she is an outstanding teacher of blind children.
In these fast-paced times it is tough enough
for sighted people to keep up with a changing world, and I'm
not thinking only of atlases that have to be radically
redrawn every few years. But I do miss seeing
new architecture, the shapes of new
automobiles, and, particularly, new
fashions.
Even though on a modest budget, I had
always tried to keep my wardrobe up-to-date.
If the arbiters of fashion had decreed that
hemlines should be above the knee, mine were lifted
(as often as not, before I went blind, with the help of
scissors and sewing machine). If the spring or
fall dresses were shown to have the hemline at the
calf, my hemlines dropped, too.
Current copies, borrowed or bought, of
Elle and Vogue used to be on our coffee
table, but now that I was no longer able to look at
sleek models showing off the latest styles from
London, Rome, Paris, or New York,
I was forced to rely on the taste of
clothes-conscious friends, who also helped me
decide on the waving, cutting, highlighting, or
shaping of my hair.
Having the right clothes for the right occasion has been
close to a fetish for me, and while, as I've
already explained, I was careful to place clothes in
a known order in closets and drawers, I did
make mistakes. It still remains a concern that I
might appear in public wearing a pink shirt with a
yellow skirt (or vice versa), or that I could
show up wearing an outfit better suited to a
Halloween party than to a ladies' luncheon.
Socks are the bane of my existence. I
tried to be particularly careful when placing
socks in a drawer. Blue socks were parked in
the left-hand top corner, white were in the middle
back area; black were in the bottom right corner,
and green, red, and yellow were assigned to special
places too.
However, as Robbie Burns, the Scots
poet (among my favorites) reminded us, "The
best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang
aft a-gley." Blind women are much more likely
than either mice or sighted men to have their schemes go
a-gley. They certainly did so one afternoon when I
was scheduled to give a talk on the history of the
Braille and Sight Saving School to a group of
out-of-state visitors.
The black knee-length socks I needed to go
with my outfit were not where they should have been,
and since I was already running late, my frustration
shifted into desperation. I yelled for
six-year-old Joy to come and help me. She was
a little slow arriving, and by the time she reached my
bedroom door I was hurling socks wildly
all over the room. From the doorway there came a
sobering cry.
"Mommy, Mommy, stop it!" screamed
Joy.
Mortified, I hugged my daughter and begged
her forgiveness. "I'll try so hard never to go
crazy like that again," I promised her.
Joy was eventually able to find a matching set of
black socks, one sock at the far end of the bed,
she told me, and the other on the windowsill.
Only a little late for the visiting VIP'S,
I was tempted to tell them about the Crazy
Clarabell I'd been ten minutes earlier.
However, I acknowledged that there was no humor at
all in behavior that had scared the daylights out of a
little girl.
But often laughter over my mistakes was
genuine and shared, especially when I made what
Joe described as my "banana peel
boo-boos." Understandably, we ate out much more
frequently these days. While I enjoyed cooking
a meal, the challenge to do well was considerable, and
all too often I over- or undercooked because I was
obliged to rely on timing, texture, and odor.
I gave up counting the number of times my best
efforts at the stove went down the garbage
disposal.
One evening, after we had eaten at a family
restaurant, Joy took me to the ladies'
room. When we came out again, she was a few
paces ahead of me. Assuming the blurred
figure at the desk was Joe, I grabbed an
arm and made for the door. The arm did not belong
to Joe!
We never did learn whether the man whom a
blonde was propelling to the door of the establishment
and out to his car had assumed I was a lady of the
evening, because Joe caught up with us, pulled me
away, and possessively marched me to our own
car. Had the stranger's wife or a friend watched
this comedy, we wondered how he had managed
to explain away a simple case of mistaken
identity.
I've experienced several similar identity
problems. One that still gives me a
chuckle occurred on a beach. When I left the
surf after a swim, my "pigeon compass," as
I called it, was off by several degrees. I
lay down on what I thought was my towel, but the
man alongside me had a much hairier chest than
Joe's, and his exclamation seemed to be in Dutch
or German. I was just very glad I didn't
understand it!
I could laugh at these blunders, but there were many
days when frustration or impatience walked at my
shoulder--and at Joe's big shoulders, too. I
can't recall why both of us were so edgy on the
evening my parents paid us a visit, having made
a detour in their journey to visit us, but it was
obviously one of those days.
Dad, who, by his nature and through long
pastoral experience, was supersensitive to human
frailties and to the problems of relationships,
took advantage of a hiatus in the living-room
conversation to give us the kind of advice both Joe
and I needed.
He turned his face to me and asked, "Joan,
do you remember the story of Job?"
"Job--oh, er--yes," I stammered, "I
think so. All those horrible things that happened
to him. Everyone knows about the patience of Job."
"Yes," agreed Dad, "but not many people know or
remember what happened to him."
Joe interjected, "As I remember, Job
had some great days when he was an old man."
Dad chuckled. "Right on target. The King
James words are "The Lord blessed the latter end
of Job more than his beginning ... and Job died,
being old and full of days.""
I asked Dad, "What made you suddenly
think of Job?"
Another chuckle. "Truthfully, I was really
thinking of you two. You see, patience has never
been one of the easier virtues. We're all
tempted to want the right things to happen yesterday."
"Guess so," said Joe.
Dad allowed a pause for pondering before he
said, "But I wasn't thinking so much of patience as
I was of what happened to change Job's
fortunes."
"And you're about to tell us," I said, laughing.
"Yes," said Dad, who by this time had already
shifted Joe and me out of the sulky mood in which he
and Mom had found us. "Yes, I sure am. This
is a free Thursday-night sermon.
No collection plate."
Now we were all laughing.
Dad continued, "There is one key verse in the
story of Job--a verse that is usually
overlooked. It's the tenth verse of the last
chapter. Job's fortunes changed when he stopped
thinking about himself and started thinking of others. Few people
have had more to complain about than Job did. But the day
came when he stopped scratching his boils and
prayed for his friends who were in trouble. And that's when
everything turned around for him, and when, in your words,
Joe, Job moved into great days."
There, in our living room, I appreciated as
almost never before the caring quality of my father, and his
wisdom, too. Importantly, Joe moved
closer to my father that night. The time was drawing near
when the new and richer relationship between the two men was
to prove so valuable.
The next morning, after Joe had left for his
office, Joy and I walked my parents out to their
car, each of us as determined as ever to put on
brave faces at our parting.
For some reason, just before Dad pulled the car out
of the driveway, I became disoriented. I
smiled and waved, but when doing so I was looking the
wrong way.
To me, when Joy referred to it afterward, my
mistake was of no consequence and quickly forgotten.
But years later Mom told me that when she and
Dad had caught sight of me looking east instead
of west they had pulled to the curb farther down the
street. Then they had cried their hearts out.
It seemed to me that whenever I was down, whenever
I was in danger of being drawn into self-pity, I
was guided--perhaps by my guardian angel--down
softer pathways. I'm so grateful for these
interventions and benedictions, given when most needed
and when least expected.
In seeking an example, I'm thinking of that
early summer morning when I so yearned to see the
leafy trees, the flowers--especially the lilacs
--the sky, the sight of children at play, that I
burst into tears. Joe, who had not yet left for
his office, was naturally perturbed, especially
when I was unable to explain the reason for my
sadness. He was satisfied, however, when I
hinted it was just "a woman's thing" and that I'd
soon be fine. He left me alone. But I
wasn't fine.
Then I felt myself almost drawn to a
balcony, not often used, on our second
floor. There, suddenly, I became aware of being
serenaded by a heavenly chorus.
What first caught my ear was the chattering of
sparrows from what had to be the broad-leafed maple
tree near the road--the one from which Joe had
slung a swing for Joy. Then my ears became
attuned to other instruments of the avian orchestra.
Soon I was entranced by trying to isolate one
bird call from another. I wondered what was
giving them such zest? were they still courting, or were
eggs newly hatching, or were they just expressing good
feelings about this beautiful day?
I was conceited enough to believe (as did, of
course, Snow White when she was out in the
woods!) that the birds were singing for my particular
pleasure. At the correct moment for an aria,
a mourning dove began its soft cooing, its song
as melancholy as a Sibelius motif. Then a
woodpecker, which was patently not keeping its eye
on the conductor's baton, rat-a-tat-tatted
away at the bark of, I believed, the alder
tree on the far side of the woodpile.
I counted them on my fingers--seven different
birdcalls! Cocking my head this way and that, and
even applauding a flute-crisp trill or
whistle, I obviously gave the impression
to Mr. Foster, the octogenarian pensioner who
lived right across the street, that I was signaling
trouble.
Mr. Foster, who knew about my blindness, shouted
up to me, asking if I needed help.
"Oh, no!" I shouted back (momentarily
silencing half the orchestra). "I'm just fine.
I'm just enjoying the birds singing."
I'm not sure whether the old fellow heard
me, because his eardrums were very leathery and he rarely
used his hearing aid. But in discovering how acutely
I could now focus my own sense of hearing, I was
on a sort of high--and not one, as I later
reassured Joe, that was caused by over-medicating.
Naturally, Joe was confused by my mood swing.
He had come back early from his office to check on
my well-being. He had, after all, left me in
tears. He returned to find me singing. But how
to explain to a man with a tin ear that I had been
marvelously entertained by a feathered Sibelius,
a full chorus of sparrows, and a musically
undisciplined woodpecker!
"And I didn't tell you about the
love song of an amorous robin?" I
exclaimed to my husband.
"No, you didn't, and I don't want to hear
it," he said as he switched the TV to a sports
program.
I did catch his interest, though, when I told
him I was cooking him a special dinner, and not
one from the freezer. Neighbors and colleagues
had kept our freezer well stocked with cooked
meals. But on this evening I had breasts of chicken
in the oven. There'd be roast potatoes and green
beans, too.
Preparing the meal was not that difficult for me, for
I had helped many blind children--boys and girls--
to become familiar with the kitchen and to be competent
cooks.
The square baking dish was where I had last
left it, in the cupboard under the silverware. The
olive oil was in the cupboard above the stove. I
tore a sheet from the paper towel roll, put the
spout of the oil bottle on the towel, upended the
bottle, then spread the baking dish with oil. I
did the seasoning by pouring salt, pepper, and minced
onion on the back of my hand to gauge the
approximate amount. I poured butter melted
in the microwave over the chicken.
Setting the oven temperature was really no
problem. I knew the angle of the dial when the
oven was set at 350 or 400 degrees--the
most common setting of an oven when baking. On this
first occasion I did cheat. I called in a
neighbor to check my setting, which, she told me,
I had angled correctly for 350 degrees.
I set the timer for one hour. Where special care
was demanded was in removing the roasted chicken from the
oven. For blind people it is essential to use
elbow-length mitts to protect the arms from
burns. The previous evening a school coworker
had brought me a brand new pair of these.
The meal itself, which included a salad and ice
cream, was a triumph. We even had candles on
the table. I'd insisted on these. All of us
replete, Joe and I then put Joy to bed before
we returned to clear the table and do the dishes.
It was at the sink that the accident happened. I
was drying my grandmother's cut-glass bowl (which had
held the green salad) when it slipped through my
fingers and splintered on the tiled floor.
"Oh, how could I have done that?" I cried out in
disgust and horror. I was kneeling on the
floor, feeling for slivers, when Joe
responded.
"Yes, you should have felt that the bowl was soapy.
You'll have to do a lot better than that."
The excitement of the day, the fun of the evening,
suddenly evaporated.
I lay awake that night until the small
hours. I wondered how a now-imperfect wife
was going to be able to meet both Joe's
expectations and her own.

"I'm Going to Die"

While I was embarrassingly deluged by people using
synonyms for courage and stoicism (if only
these well-meaning folks had known how frail I
often felt!), few gave a thought to how tough
Joe's life had now become.
Here was a man so strong, vigorous, and
masculine that he gave the impression of
attacking life with a rapier; here was a man who
possessed the compassion needed to be a good teacher
of the severely handicapped; and here was a man whose
time and activities were now restricted
by unanticipated duties and concerns.
He rarely complained about having to do the grocery
shopping, or driving me anywhere I needed to go,
or so many other chores, but in one depressed
moment, when he seemed to be speaking more to himself than
to me, he revealed what most weighed on his mind.
He said, "I work all day with the blind, and I come
back at night to a blind wife."
As I've mentioned, Joe was a perfectionist,
a trait that can be admirable in some vocations and
circumstances (was not Michelangelo so
described?), but one that often exacerbates
difficulties. Yet his high standards encouraged
me to strive to improve my capabilities.
The three of us (or the four of us when Jay was
with us) had many exhilarating times together, including
memorable camping and beach vacations. Together, and with
pride, we watched our daughter move through those
especially enchanting middle years of the first
decade. Often, when I would inquire as to what was
so engaging his attention that he was silent for a long
period, Joe would respond that he was watching
Joy at play.
I recall his once saying, "Our daughter
is so pretty, so graceful, so happy, that I
could spend the whole day simply watching her."
This observation was made when we were on a beach and
Joy was building a sand castle or something. On
such occasions I most coveted my husband's
eyes. I would enjoin him to tell me more--"Tell
me what she's doing this very moment. Oh, tell
me, tell me ..."
When Joy was six, I gave up my
professional position at the Braille School.
One reason was that I felt it
important to be available to Joy at all
times. Her school was close, and there were few
moments of my day I more enjoyed than school
recess, when Joy would likely bring half a
dozen of her friends to see me--or, perhaps,
to sample my home-baked cookies.
If the weather was good, I would sit on the
upstairs balcony and wait impatiently for the
welcome invasion of the six-year-olds. Then I
would hear the cries of "Hi, Mom!" "Hi,
Mrs. B.!" "Hi, Mrs. Beringer!"
How my heart would warm to those treble
salutations.
There were other reasons for giving up my job.
One was that Joe had just been promoted. But the
most compelling excuse was that my energy level was
near its lowest ebb. Arthritic pain had
surged, and I was constantly aware again of
pleurisy.
Because of my physical problems I was obliged
to spend more time visiting medical specialists who
were trying to balance my medications--notably
steroids.
As I sadly handed in my resignation to the
Braille School superintendent, Dennis
Thurman, I gained his kindly laughter when I
said, "You won't believe this, but I've come to the
conclusion that I'm not Superwoman!"
Both Mr. Thurman and my immediate
supervisor, Mary Beth Young, gave me what
they described as "total freedom of the
campus" and assured me that I could visit any
dorm, any classroom, the library, or any
other facility at any time. They both also said
good things about my work at the Braille School.
Joe supported my decision to give up my
job, and because I had become so much more efficient in
running our home--and I loved being a full-time
housewife and mother--he was now freer to enjoy
outlets for his seemingly inexhaustible energy.
Joe had always been a sports fanatic and,
in his off-duty hours, if he wasn't playing
basketball or softball, there were TV
sports programs on one channel or another
--some of them, I began to believe, created or
transmitted especially for him.
In the spring of 1988 I noticed that Joe was
losing some of the edge to his enthusiasm, not only for
his work and sports but for social engagements too.
He would find a thin excuse for not
playing basketball with his highly competitive
friends, or for not going to a Friday-night
barbecue.
One afternoon, when his favorite baseball team,
the Los Angeles Dodgers, were featured at
spring training, I was amazed to find Joe
asleep on the living-room couch. The game was
on the screen and the volume was, as usual, too
loud. But Joe was snoring!
There were other omens. He was uncharacteristically
irritable. He snapped at Joy, and Jay,
too, when his son was visiting. The incidents
came more frequently and often without reasonable
cause. I had long gotten used to his rebuking
me for clumsiness or for one failing or another,
but his rebukes now carried a hurtful sting.
I excused him because I knew his sinuses were
acting up. Joe had suffered from allergies all
his life, and I believed that the reason they were so
much worse this year was because more spores or molds
had been liberated by the springtime warming of the soil.
What triggered my anxiety into real concern was
a supper-time incident. We had a full table
because Mom and Dad were visiting again and so was
stepson Jay. Between us, Mom and I had
prepared one of Joe's favorite dishes--
pork chops. I was certainly expecting a
compliment when Joe said sharply, "Where's the
applesauce?"
It was his tone of voice that shocked the table
into silence.
I attempted to smother the awkward moment
by speaking up lightly. "How silly of me," I
acknowledged. "I forgot that the jar was empty, but
there's another in the basement."
Eager to make amends, I hurried to the
basement. The next thing I knew I was flat
on my back. The playroom door had been
left half-open. My forehead and right knee hit
the edge of the door at the same moment. I was
badly shaken and very sore.
Before returning upstairs with the applesauce, and
taking a moment to rub the bruises, my anger
gathered. Back at the table, I told the company
what had happened and then angrily told Joy and
Jay to try to remember to close all doors.
(a half-open door, I should clarify, is one
of the more common domestic perils for the sightless.)
I was shocked and shaken when Joe said, "It's
your fault anyway. Didn't you spend
years teaching blind kids to go slowly? Why don't
you practice what you preached?"
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. My
parents and the children were obviously no less upset
than I was. But I hurt for Joe, too, because
I knew he was ashamed of his retort.
Later, when my parents and I had a moment
alone, I explained about the sinuses. "He's
really not himself at the moment, and he's been having
awful headaches."
When Mom asked why Joe didn't go and see
a doctor, I told her, "Because he doesn't
like doctors. He doesn't trust them. He
feels that the doctors could have done something to save
my eyesight if they'd been quicker with treatment."
I added quickly, "That's what Joe thinks.
It's not what I think."
When Joe and I were in bed that night, I
raised once again the problem of his sinuses and
headaches. I said, "Honey, they seem to be so
much worse this year. I hear you using that
nasal-spray thing all the time. You know very well
that you shouldn't be doing that. There used to be and
probably still is a red-lettered warning about squeezing
the thing no more than four times a day."
Joe grunted. "Nothing seems to help
anyway. It's the headaches that get to me." It
was strange to find myself in the role of consoling this
strong and usually self-contained man. After a long
pause I asked him if he would do me a
favor. Would he please see a doctor?
"Just Dr. Anthony," I said. "Remember,
he's your friend."
"No quack has ever done anything for me,"
he protested, but I could tell from his voice that his
opposition was weakening. I pressed my
advantage and gained his promise that if within one
week his headaches were no better he would see
Tony Anthony.
Exactly one week later I heard him on
the phone speaking to the school office. I heard
him say that he wouldn't be going to work that day as he
had "a cold or something."
I moved to his side. "What's really the
matter?" I asked.
"Another damn headache," he admitted.
"Then you have another call to make."
"Huh?"
"To Tony Anthony--you promised."
"Oh yeah, maybe later."
I lifted the phone off the cradle. "Right
now," I insisted as I gave him the doctor's
number--one of about fifty important phone
numbers I now had registered in my head.
Later that afternoon Dr. Anthony gave Joe a
prescription drug to help dry out his sinuses,
but he also made an appointment for Joe to see
an ear, nose, and throat specialist in Cedar
Rapids, about half an hour's drive from
Vinton.
Three days later, a Cedar Rapids ENT
man gave a quick diagnosis. The cartilage in
Joe's right nostril had grown and it had shut
down the air passage. The minor problem would
require simple surgery.
Surgery was scheduled for June 10. For me,
this was not early enough, as I became increasingly
distressed by Joe's mood swings. I didn't
express my anxiety aloud. In fact, I
gave Joe every encouragement to enjoy himself in his
pain-free spells.
It was his idea--and one I heartily endorsed
--to take the family to a Twins' ball game in
Minneapolis. What balm to my ears to hear
Joe explaining the niceties of the game to Joy
and her half brother. I suspected that Joe had
earlier swallowed a mouthful of painkillers.
On the drive home, Jay asked his father why
he was going so slowly. When Joe didn't
reply, I asked him if he had a headache.
Joe turned to me and said blisteringly,
"Okay, Joan, you drive!"
I gulped and replied softly, "That doesn't
sound like you."
He touched my face--his gesture of
apology--then said quietly, "It's not a
headache. It's just--well--for some reason I'm
seeing double." He pulled in a deep breath and
added, "Don't worry, I'll get us home.
Damned sinuses. Surgery will fix 'em."
The day before the surgery, Joe's parents, who
were always supportive, joined us in Vinton. It
was they who drove us (joe and me) to St.
Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids.
The septoplasty procedure lasted only
half an hour. The surgeon told us that everything
had gone well. Joe's nose would be sore for a
few days, and he would stay in the hospital
overnight just in case there was some postoperative
hemorrhaging. When Joe had recovered
from the anesthetic I hugged him and assured him that
he was back on track.
The hospital allowed me to sleep on a cot
in his room. They granted me this favor because I
was known to several members of the medical staff. It
was at St. Luke's that I had undergone a number
of tests to try to identify the lupuslike condition
that had destroyed my eyesight. Ken and
JoAnne went home to be with Joy.
The cot which they had placed alongside Joe's
bed was comfortable enough, but I didn't sleep
well. I kept thinking that I, not Joe, should be
in the bed, and that I, not Joe, should be getting the
attention of the nursing staff. Something seemed
absurdly wrong.
The next morning the surgeon looked in and
told Joe to keep off the basketball court
for a while. He also asked Joe to report back
to his office in a couple of weeks.
It was a long two weeks. The nose did not
heal, as promised, and Joe's headaches
intensified. The double vision remained. On the
tenth day after what was supposed to have been a
simple procedure, Joe had a bad
hemorrhage. He went to the bathroom to clean
up.
When he eventually came downstairs he said,
"Funny thing, but I could swear that my right eye
looks much bigger than my left eye."
"Probably bruising caused by surgery," I
suggested.
"Probably," he replied, "but you'd think--
oh, forget it."
But I couldn't forget it.
When the two-week checkup day arrived, Joe
insisted on driving us to the surgeon's office,
adjacent to St. Luke's Hospital.
"What about the double vision?" I asked
anxiously.
"Oh, I'm fine when I keep my right eye
closed," he assured me. He feigned a
light mood and said, "We only need one good
eye between the two of us."
Joe was a surprisingly short time with the
surgeon. I naturally thought all had gone
well and that his nose was healing normally.
"What happened?" I asked as he pulled me
from my chair.
"Got to take this to pathology," he said
flatly.
"What's this?" I asked.
"A small vial. Contains some tissue from
my nose."
Tissue! Pathology! The words sounded
alarmingly ominous.
The pathology department was in the hospital's
basement and it necessitated a long walk. A
doctor in an elevator and two nurses in a
corridor recognized me. They asked how I
was faring. I forced smiles. Purposely I
didn't introduce the man at my side. Joe
was very calm (or in denial) as he handed over the
vial to a pathology department nurse.
I had come to hate the distinctive smell of
hospitals. For me it was the cloying odor of
pain, tragedy, and grief--so much so that when I
now bought soap or household detergents I first
made sure that they didn't smell like the
antiseptic cleansers used to scrub hospital
corridors or the hands of the medical staff.
Because the doctor had said there would be no
pathology report until mid-morning on
Monday we returned home, but our weekend was
shadowed by thoughts that someone had looked through a
microscope at a tiny piece of Joe's
flesh.
Joe returned to the Cedar Rapids
hospital on time on the Monday morning. I
sat by the telephone.
It was about eleven-thirty when Joe phoned.
His voice was firm but his words froze me.
He said, "I'm on my way to the University
Hospital at Iowa City where I have a one
o'clock appointment." A pause for an intake of
breath. Then, "I have a malignancy."
"Oh, Joe!" It was all I could manage
to exclaim.
"Look, I'm running late," he said.
"I'm calling from a truck stop." His voice was
still level. I could hear the roar of a big rig's
engine nearby.
I swallowed the huge lump in my throat and
asked, "Should I call your parents?"
"Do that," he said. "Just my folks--oh, and
your folks, too. No one else." A pause
and another big intake of breath. Then, "I
love you."
I heard his phone click. A moment later
Joy came running to ask me if she could go down
the street to play with a neighbor's child.
She spotted my tears.
"Mom, what's the matter?" she asked.
"Was that Daddy on the phone?"
I wiped my cheeks on my sleeve.
"Yes," I said. "He told me that--that he
loved me."
"Oh!" said Joy. "Well, it's okay then.
I can go and play with Peggy."
"Of course," I said, "and if they ask you, you
can stay for lunch."
I was compelled to wait about twenty minutes before
I was sufficiently in control of my emotions
to call Joe's parents. I managed to avoid
breaking down as I told them only what Joe
had told me. They were ready to drive to Vinton
immediately. However, I suggested they wait until
Joe called me and we knew more.
Then Joy reappeared. With the directness of a
seven-year-old she said, "Mom, I want to be
with you when you are sad. You are sad, aren't you,
Mom?"
"Yes," I said.
She was eager to comfort me. When we sat down
side by side on the couch she borrowed one of my
own phrases used when comforting her. She asked,
"Will it help you to tell me about it?"
I tried to smile as I said, "Darling, you're only seven years old!"
She giggled. "You're feeling better, aren't
you?"
I squeezed her. "How could anyone not feel
better when they're with you?"
I thought of how, since the age of three, Joy
had had to shoulder unusual responsibilities.
She was three years old when she first lead me
to ladies' rooms at restaurants and
airports. At six she was reading me menus and
important notices, even struggling to read me
letters.
She was also a beautician's apprentice--at
least, that's what I called her as, each morning,
she checked my makeup, making sure, for instance,
that there were no globs of mascara on my lashes!
And now my seven-year-old was asking me to share
the reasons for my grief. However, I found myself
quite unable to do so. I was glad that Joe had asked
me not to tell Joy about the diagnosis.
Although I'd been expecting the phone call,
when it eventually came in mid-afternoon the ring was as
alarming and as alerting as a gunshot at
midnight.
"It's me," Joe said.
"Yes! Yes?"
"I have cancer." His voice was as flat as a
robot's.
My heart was pounding.
"Cancer of the sinuses," he said.
A five-second pause; ten seconds;
fifteen seconds. What was happening? Was he still
there? Yes, I could hear his breathing. Then, "They
want to take out my right eye."
"Oh, no! No! No!"
Another long and dread-filled moment. Then,
"I'm coming home."
So taut was I, so absolutely horrified,
that any comforting response I might have been able
to give him remained locked in my throat.
His voice was still dead when he said, "Did you
hear me? I'm on my way home."
"Yes, Joe," I rasped. "I heard you."
"You haven't told Joy?"
"No."
"Good. I want to tell her."
"Yes. Do you want your parents here?"
"Yep."
"Drive carefully--very carefully."
"Yep. See you soon."
"I love you, Joe."
"I know."
When the phone had rung Joy had been riding
her Big Wheel in the yard. I was aware that she
was now beside me and gripping my leg. I was still
holding the phone.
My words were spoken aloud when I prayed,
"Dear God, please help us. Please help
us all."
My mind was very slow in receiving the full shock of
Joe's words. Joy knew that something was terribly
wrong.
Scared, she asked, "Has Daddy had an
accident?"
"No," I told her, "but he's sick, very
sick."
"Is he in the hospital?"
"No. He's coming home. He'll tell you
about it." I was surprised that my voice sounded
almost normal. I told Joy to go out and play
on her Big Wheel for a while as I needed
to make some phone calls. When I heard the
front door close I called
Joe's father, who said that he and JoAnne were on
their way.
Then I called my parents. Because Dad had
recently retired, he and Mom had moved back
to Bakersfield, California. There they now owned
their first home. It was Dad who answered. This time
my voice did break, but I managed to tell
him the tragic news. Dad asked if I thought
Joe would like him to call back that evening. I
told Dad that Joe would be sure to value his
call very much.
On our hearing the car arrive, Joy and I
rushed out to greet Joe. After a brief
exchange of kisses, Joe distanced himself from us.
I guessed that while he was driving home he had
thought out the best way of handling his arrival. He was
clearly determined to keep his emotions on a very
tight rein.
Once inside the house he sat on his
recliner and, in simple terms, he explained
what had happened at the University of Iowa
Hospital. He could as well have been speaking
about a school project. He would certainly have
been more animated had he been speaking about
baseball. He mentioned the name of the specialist
who had examined him, a Dr. Douglas
Dawson.
"I liked him," he said. "He used a
model of a head to explain where this tumor thing is
growing. He's my kind of man."
I'd never before heard Joe pay tribute
to any physician.
He turned to Joy. "A tumor is like an
enemy--a very nasty enemy. The doctors are going
to attack it so that it won't be able to hurt me
anymore."
Joy asked if the doctors would use guns
to kill the enemy.
"Yes, sort of guns," he said, "and some very
sharp knives."
"Like swords?" asked Joy.
"Sort of like small swords," he replied
gently.
The conversation continued at this simple level
until Joy was satisfied that the doctors were
going to help win the war against a bad enemy who was
hurting her beloved Daddy.
It was an extraordinary conversation, and for me, a
new revelation of Joe's courage. Here he had
been talking about the greatest crisis in his
life, in our lives, in the same tone and manner
as he told bedtime stories to his daughter.
Since he had not mentioned to Joy that he was going
to lose an eye, it was little wonder that she was
satisfied and went upstairs to bed.
Of course the dialogue was on a different
level when Joe's parents arrived late that
evening. While I was busy making them sandwiches,
Joe explained in technical detail how the
doctors would try to save his life. The
atmosphere was heavy with shock, sadness, and
disbelief.
Only when we reached the bedroom did he
loosen the tight reins he had kept on his
emotions. Both of us were wordless as we held each
other closely for half an hour or more, I
trying desperately to hold back my tears and
to control the trembling of my limbs.
Then Joe whispered, "When your father spoke
to me on the phone tonight he recited the
Twenty-third Psalm." He paused so long that
I wondered whether that was all he was going to say.
I made no response because I did not trust
my voice.
But then Joe continued. Still in a whisper, he
quoted a couple of the fabulous verses: "He
leadeth me beside the still waters ... Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will
fear no evil. For thou art with me ..."
After another long silence Joe said quietly,
"I need to believe those words to be true. You must
help me to believe them, sweetheart, because ...
because I'm going to die."


The Longest Day and a Silent Night

Joe battled for his life for seven months.
In my returning now to the scenes of his
battleground, I find myself thinking of a
black-and-white movie I saw on TV when
I was very young. I cannot recall the name of the movie,
or the names of the stars who acted in it, or even the
story, but I do remember a knight in full
armor leading his army against a foe. Although the
knight was mortally wounded, he went on fighting and
encouraging his soldiers until he could no longer
lift his sword. Only then was he struck down.
Yes, that was Joe. His courage blazed.
From that first grim diagnosis, he
knew the chances of his surviving were very small. His
principal surgeon, Dr. Douglas
Dawson, must have observed Joe's strength, for
he did not mince his words.
Joe was given three options. The first was, in
effect, to do nothing, to eschew surgery and
medication, except for drugs to subdue the pain.
If this were his choice, the doctor told him, he
might live for two, possibly three, months.
The second option was to go for surgery alone. He
would, as he already knew, lose an eye. The
chances of the cancer returning within the year would be
high. His third option was to undergo the surgery and
follow up with chemotherapy and radiation. There would
be a chance that he could go on living.
No promises were given that Joe would even
survive the radical surgery by a team of ten
or more specialized doctors and technicians.
We were told that the surgery would last twelve
hours, possibly even longer. The cancer had
already moved its destructive tentacles into the
frontal lobe of Joe's brain. A section
of the brain would have to be removed.
Joe had selected his option immediately. I was
beside him when he said, "Of course I choose the
third option. For the sake of my family I
want you to do all you can to prolong my life."
Ironically, the man who gave Joe the only
positive news was Dr. Corbett, the
physician Joe had so disliked when he was in
charge of me. Joe now saw Dr. Corbett as
a trusted member of the surgical team being mustered
for the dangerous and complex operation.
Dr. Corbett told Joe, "While there
is no way of salvaging the right eye, the left
eye is absolutely clear of cancer."
Joe was certainly smiling--I could tell--when
he turned to me and said, "Honey, we can manage
on one working eye, can't we?"
Early in the evening before the surgery Joe
settled into his room at the University of
Iowa Hospital. The adult members of his
family held a brief prayer service at his
bedside. Dad had flown in from California.
Dave, our minister from Vinton, had joined us,
too, as had Joe's parents and his brothers. We
had left Joy with friends. We all held hands as
Dave prayed. For me, four words, "Thy will be
done," remained poised in the air over Joe's
bed.
Then the large family group left Joe and
me alone. We held hands for a spell, then
Joe said, "Sometimes I forget to tell you that I
love you."
"I know," I said, "and I should say those three
words more often too."
Joe then reminded me, although I'd not
forgotten, that the following day would be our tenth wedding
anniversary. He said, "Next year, honey,
we'll be in a better place than this--I
promise you."
I was calm until Joe said, "I wish I
was as strong as you, sweetheart."
"Oh, but you are," I said urgently. "You're
stronger." I clasped him then and found that he was
trembling. That Joe was deeply afraid made
the moment especially moving for me.
That night in bed I sat up and bowed my head
as I thought that without fear there can really be no
courage. Joe's vulnerability and trembling
made him all the braver to me.
The next dawn began my longest day--a day
of what proved to be sixteen hours of surgery.
Sometimes by phone from the operating theater to the waiting
room, sometimes in person, Dr. Dawson gave
us progress reports. He and his colleagues
were, he said, amazed by how fit Joe was. His
heart, blood pressure, and other vital
signs had given them no concern at all.
At one point, and at my request, the
doctor had traced with his fingernail on my own
skull just what area of Joe they were cutting. I
was appalled when the doctor's nail moved in an
arc across my head from one ear to another, and then around
the socket of my right eye, then down my nose and
cheek to my upper lip. The doctor explained
further that Joe would lose half his upper
palate and some teeth. I expressed my
horror that Joe would look terrible, not to me, of
course, but to the world. The doctor assured us that
plastic surgery, a dental plate, and, in time,
a prosthetic eye would re-create an almost
normal face, and that, when the swelling had
decreased, the casual observer might not give
him a second glance.
We were cautioned that because a section of the brain had
been excised, Joe might be in a coma for some
days. But on the following morning when Dad and I
were first permitted to visit Joe in the intensive
care unit, he recognized us and even
thanked us for coming.
Joe was in the hospital for two weeks. His
doctors were surprised by the pace at which he
regained strength. However, his last day at the
hospital was a particularly traumatic one for
him. His family, who had been with us
frequently, was asked by a nurse to leave the
room. She was, she said, going to show Joe how
to clean out his eye socket--a task, she
cautioned, that had to be performed with a special
solution and a Water Pik twice a day.
Now, for the first time, Joe was to see his face
without an eye patch or bandages. He asked me
to stay with him, and added wryly, "At least you,
honey, won't keel over."
The nurse removed the eye patch and led him
(so I was being told by Joe) to a wall mirror.
Then I heard Joe hiss with horror as he
looked into his wound. A moment later and he was
beside me on the bed and breathing hard. He gasped,
"If I'd seen a face like that on a man lying
in the street I would have said he was dead."
All I could do was squeeze his hand.
The nurse, who had surely been specially
selected for duties as difficult as this one,
pulled Joe to his feet again. She said gently,
but with authority, "Mr. Beringer, if this wound
gets infected you're in big trouble. If you
want to recover, if you don't want to be quickly
back in the hospital with a septic head wound, you
must learn to cleanse your eye yourself and very
thoroughly. Let's try again."
Instruction on the use of the Water Pik took
quite a while. I tried not to think of what was going
through Joe's mind as he irrigated his eye
socket. When he was finally ready to leave the
hospital he was wearing an eye patch and also a
cap to cover his shaved head.
One of his sportsman brothers greeted him
by shouting, "Kick butt, Joe."
Joe laughed. It was the first laugh I had
heard from him in more than a month. He said, "I
already have K-B'ed."
But that night, when we shared a bed again, Joe was
far from laughter when he said, "Honey, I want
you to know that I'm going to leave you soon. I'm just
glad I've been given time to put things right,
to put my insurance papers and my will in order, that
sort of stuff."
I felt that Joe understood my
silence.
After a long time he said, "I've been thinking
about that time when your Dad came here and he talked
about the Book of Job. Remember?"
I nodded.
"The most important thing that happened to Job
was that he stopped scratching his boils, and he
began to think about other people. Do you think those boils
were on Job's butt? I once sat in some
poison ivy, so I know what a very sore butt
can be like. I had to eat my meals standing up. Now
where was I?"
"You were quoting Dad," I said, my voice
half muffled by the pillow. I didn't want
Joe to hear me in the event that I sobbed.
"Ah, that's right. Yup, with what's happened
to me and what they've done to me, I could spend my
time being a jerk. I don't plan to be a jerk,
and I think what your Dad was saying was that if you
want to stop being a jerk, start thinking about other people.
Right?"
"Right," I said.
"We've especially got to be thinking about
Joy and Jay. We've got to be strong for them.
You, too, sweetheart."
"Yes," I said. I was crying now, but so
softly that he didn't seem to hear me.
The very powerful sleeping pill he had swallowed
half an hour earlier began to take effect.
He began to slur his words. Over and over again he
said, "Good to be home ... good to be home."
When I knew he was asleep I got up,
grabbed some blankets, went downstairs, and
made up a bed on the couch in the living room.
What I had been concerned about was that in my turning
over in our queen-size bed I would awaken
Joe. When he slept he was pain-free. When
he was awake he was rarely, if ever, free of
pain.
Before dawn I was awakened by a bellow from
upstairs. My peripheral vision could not pick
up a glimpse of light from the window. I gathered
my wits and became scared. Had something horrible
happened to Joe?
As I stumbled into the bedroom my mind was
relieved when Joe demanded, "Aren't you still my
wife?"
"Of course."
"Then why didn't you sleep with me?"
"Because I--"
"Because nothing. I want you beside me. I need you
beside me. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Then climb back in."
Later in the morning, while Joe was cleansing
his eye socket and after Joy had gone off
to school, I went alone to the second-story
balcony. Since that long-ago spring morning when
the birds had given me a concert, it had become
a sort of sanctuary for me. It was a good
place to think and to experience what I described
to myself as a spiritual in-filling.
Invariably I took up a
Juliet-on-the-balcony pose. I leaned my
elbows on the wooden rail and cupped my chin in
my hands.
The tang in the air was a reminder that fall had
begun; so, too, were the sounds of dead leaves
scratching the sidewalk as they were whipped
into eddies by wind gusts. A large leaf from, I
guessed, the maple tree brushed my neck. People
with sight would not, I thought, have noticed this soft
caress. They would have been absorbed by the colors
of the fall--the yellows, golds, and reds of every
hue--the colors I could no longer enjoy.
Every day now I was waiting for the honking of the
geese migrating down from the north. If I were
lucky, Joy or Joe would be with me when the
geese arrived overhead. We'd exclaim together.
We always did.
While enjoying, then, the scents, the touch, the
sounds of the fall, I allowed my mind
to free-float, as it were. This was the way of things
when I sought and relished these quiet interludes
on the balcony. I first gave thanks for
blessings, for the care and support of family and
friends, and then I spoke the names of people in need--
Joe's name first, of course, then Joy's and
Jay's. I asked for help for Mr.
Peterson, across the road, who had had a mild
heart attack. There were a dozen others whose names
I offered to the Throne Room.
Then in my "free-float" moments I
experienced an in-filling of peace, a
reassurance that God had not let go of my hand, and
never would. The quietly flowing stream of my thoughts
encircled Joe once more. For the first time I knew
in my heart--though my mind and my lips would
continue to deny it--that Joe was in the autumn of his
days, that Joe would, as he himself had
told me, leave me soon.
This understanding that Joe was dying did not preoccupy
my thinking. There wasn't time for morbidity, nor
the need for it. Each day I was challenged to be a
good homemaker and mother. Also, Joe's courage
helped ward off hovering specters of gloom.
Only two weeks after he had returned
home, only four weeks after he had undergone
sixteen hours of surgery, I found Joe
dressed, with collar and tie, and rattling the car
keys.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"I'm going to work," he replied chirpily.
"You mean you're going to the Braille School?"
"What a quick mind you've got," he said,
laughing and bending to kiss my cheek. "You surely
recall that I'm an assistant administrator,
and I suspect that after my long absence the in
basket is reaching the ceiling."
"But Joe, you can't--"
"I can, and I'm going to. My eye patch
is in place. My mustache has grown back,
and although my hair looks a bit tufty, I
intend to keep my cap on. The kids don't
give a hoot what I look like, and to the staff
I'll look--well--rather rakish."
"But Joe, you're not yet--"
His hand was over my mouth, effectively smothering
protest and concern.
In those early weeks back from the hospital
Joe's main frustration was his difficulty in
speaking or, more accurately, in being understood.
Part of the surgery, as I've mentioned, had been the
removal of half his palate, but the plate which
had been fixed over the roof of his mouth to allow him
to eat, as well as to speak, would become loose.
On the phone, especially, he had to talk
slowly, enunciating each word. If he removed
the palate plate, which he was obliged to do when his
mouth became sore, only Joy could understand him.
He now spent much more time with Joy than he
used to, and with Jay when his twelve-year-old
son was visiting. I'd often find him sitting on
Joy's bed late at night while our
eight-year-old was fast asleep.
He explained, "I can't see enough of her. I
want a thousand photographs of her in my mind.
Soon, those photos will be all I'll have." Of
Jay he said, "I want to share ideas with him--
thoughts that may help him when he's grown
up."
He made it clear that he had sorted out his
priorities. He was eager to start radiation.
He would, he told me, do anything the doctors
proposed if it would usefully extend his life--
"by a month, a week, a couple of days." He
added, "But I sure don't want to be kept
alive if I'm just a vegetable."
One evening when he came home from an
administrative meeting he was patently deeply
upset. After he had slumped into his recliner
I asked him what was wrong.
"Can you believe it?" he shouted. "We wasted
an hour talking about staff parking problems! Here
we are, two hundred staff people claiming to be
trying to help blind kids cope with the sighted world, and
we spend half our meeting arguing over who is
going to park where. I nearly threw up. Wish I
had."
Joe changed. He was different in so many
ways. He was making every day count and, I
suspected, counting every day that was left to him. He
was more caring, more courteous, and even, it seemed, and
when occasion offered the opportunity, more humorous.
For a period an ear infection related to the
surgery caused him to lose his equilibrium.
After he was given some medical attention at a
hospital, we had to walk quite a distance to the car.
To prevent himself from staggering, he was obliged to lean
heavily on me. I could hear other people moving about,
and I mentioned to Joe that we must look like that
well-known picture of wounded Southern soldiers
returning home from the Civil War.
"No," he said, "we look more like a couple of
drunks." So saying, he burst into a song and
purposely slurred his words. I wished I could
have seen the faces close by. As he drove us
home, his laughter was deep.
He claimed to be pleased when he started
to lose weight. A neighbor lady offered
to alter his suits and pants. He was delighted
when friends told him that he looked in better shape
than he had for years--possibly true because he
had previously been badly overweight.
For a while only I knew how exhausted he really was and how sick he became following the
radiation treatment. Then suddenly, after
Thanksgiving (when we had made the six-hour
journey to his parents' home in South
Dakota), Joe became very frail.
It was as if an overnight storm had swept
away the leaves from a stalwart oak.
Joe, in his mid-thirties, was now entering the
winter of his days. He gave up going to the Braille
School. Often he failed to clean out his eye or
could not be bothered to do so anymore. I was haunted
by the warning that he could get a septic socket.
Also, I had to struggle every day to persuade him
to eat. All he wanted to do was sleep.
Our home now became strangely quiet.
We rarely turned on the TV. Joy and I
tiptoed around the house. And Joy no longer
brought in friends from school. How often in daytime did
I climb the stairs to find out if Joe was still
breathing? How many times at night did I awaken
and anxiously listen for the sound of his breath?
But the heroic knight was not beaten yet. In the
middle of December a Braille School
houseparent and friend, Elaine, phoned to say that
"Joe's blind kids" had asked if they could come and
sing carols to their beloved Mr. B. These were the
kids he had taught to wrestle. These were the kids
he had taken camping.
Except for when he crawled to the bathroom,
Joe had not gotten out of his bed for ten days.
To Elaine on the phone, I held back my
answer for so long that she asked, "Are you still there,
Joan?"
"Yes," I said, "but I'll have to ask
Joe."
"But they're coming this afternoon," said Elaine.
"They'll just sing outside his window. Perhaps he could
give them a greeting. They'll be at your house
in about three-quarters of an hour."
I promised to give Joe the message.
Joe was in such a deep sleep that I was
reluctant to awaken him to his world of pain. He
was never now without a headache, too often a
savage one.
It took three shakings of his shoulders to rouse
him.
"The kids are coming here?" he asked, half
dazed.
"In less than an hour," I told him,
"but you don't have to worry. Joy and I will
welcome them. We'll get some candy. It's
okay. Just go back to sleep."
When Joe made no reply I assumed he
had gone back to a drugged sleep. A neighbor
took Joy to buy candy canes. I was
in the kitchen when I heard an unusual thumping
noise. Joe was coming downstairs! He was on his
hands and knees. He had dressed himself in a
sweat suit.
"Oh, Joe," I cried out, "you didn't have
to."
He reached the bottom of the stairs at the moment
Joy burst through the front door and cried out that the
carol singers were now only two blocks down our
street.
Joe instructed Joy to put on all the
houselights. I mentioned that the kids wouldn't see
the lights.
"But I will," he replied, "and Joy will, and the
neighbors will."
As soon as the kids arrived and began to sing
"O! Come All Ye Faithful" Joe opened the
door and leaned against the door frame. A
horseshoe-shaped circle of kids stood out there
in the bitter cold. Joy walked around the
circle, handing out the candy canes from a basket,
and I, with tears streaming down my cheeks, walked
behind her and gave each child a hug.
Between carols the kids called out, "Hi, Mr.
B.!" "Merry Christmas, Mr. B.!"
"Get well, Mr. B., 'cause we miss
you."
The kids cheered when Joe called back something
that sounded vaguely like "Merry Christmas." I
guessed that his palate plate had slipped again.
Finally, the blind children broke into "Silent
Night." I'd never heard the words sung more
sweetly. I surely never will again.
The carol singers did more than provide us with
an unforgettable evening. Joe, who had seemed
to be running on empty, now tapped into a
reserve of energy. Knowing that Joy had a small
role in a Christmas play at the church, Joe
insisted on seeing it. He managed to stay through the
first half of the play before asking to be taken home.
Joe's family came for Christmas Day, and
he carved the turkey. He even attended a
New Year's Eve party given by the friends with whom
he had played basketball and softball.
In thinking back to that movie in which the gallant
knight had gone on fighting though mortally wounded,
the hardest part for me to watch as a child had been when
the knight had to take two hands to lift his
sword.
Joe had reached the point in his own
battle when he could, as it were, no longer lift
his sword. Following a night in which he suffered
excruciating pain, we all knew (dad and
Mom were with us) that it was time for Joe to leave home
and go to the local hospital. Dr. Tony
Anthony, our friend, made the decision and the move
easier for us.
There was such a richness even about Joe's last
days. He and Dad became very close. Joe's
parents were often at his bedside, and I was aware of
how hard it was for Joe to see the pain in the eyes
of his folks.
I was with Dad at Joe's hospital
bedside when Joe said with surprising clarity and
conviction, "I am not afraid to die. I think you
both know that. But how do I free myself from the pain
and the guilt of knowing that I could have been a better
father, son, and husband?"
Dad said quietly, "There isn't one of us
who could not have done things better with our lives."
He went on to remind Joe that, at his earlier
asking, he had been forgiven and that he could and should
now forgive himself.
On the last day in which he was coherent we had
our real valedictory moment. His concern,
indeed, his only concern, was about our future. He
again mentioned a life insurance policy that had been
taken out by the Braille School, but uppermost in his
mind was where Joy and I were going to live.
I told him that I had given much thought to this question
and had decided that we'd go back to California.
"It's best, I think, that we be near my
family. So we'll be going back
to Bakersfield."
"Good," he whispered, "very good."
"And Joy is excited," I assured him.
"She remembers those California vacations."
He said something now that I didn't understand. I
bent over the bed, and he interpreted my gesture.
He whispered, "Jay. Keep in touch with
Jay."
"We will," I promised. "We'll invite
him down for vacations."
"They're both great kids," he whispered.
"Yes, they're great kids."
I was aware of his sudden spasm of pain. For a
while we were silent, simply holding hands. Then
he turned my hands over and said, "Your hands have
worked so hard for me." They were not the last words he
spoke to me, but the last words that I
understood.
Joe died at four minutes after the midnight
of his thirty-sixth birthday. They called me from
the hospital. Dad accompanied me to the
hospital, where we had a prayer together at
Joe's bedside. I reached out and touched Joe's
still warm hand. Not being able to see him, I felt the
need to do this.
I phoned Jay's mother, who was compassionate and
helpful. We agreed it was best that she should give
the news to Jay. What I was dreading was having
to tell Joy, as soon as she awoke, that her
beloved Daddy had gone. She barely stirred
when, at dawn, I got into her bed and snuggled with
her. When she eventually awakened she said immediately
and calmly, "Daddy's died, hasn't he?"
"Yes," I told her, "very peacefully."
I reached out to stroke her cheeks and, to my
surprise, found them to be dry.
"It's okay, Mom," she said quietly,
"I've cried all my tears."
There were other times in the next stressful days and
weeks when Joy was comforting me. Over and again I
asked myself if my daughter was really only
eight!
Ten days or so later, and after Mom and Dad
had returned to California, I awakened from an
unforgettable dream. I had dreamt that Joy and
I were holding hands and facing a darkly shadowed
mountain. An illuminated pathway traversed the
forested lowlands and then soared through the rocky upper
slopes. The sun of the new dawning had not yet
risen above the mountain's burnished crest.
Strangely, I was not daunted but was comforted,
indeed exhilarated, by this dream, for it seemed
to hold a promise of good things to come, so long as
we held the faith and had the courage to strive and
to climb on. Perhaps we could even reach that
burnished ridge and thus survey the sun-warmed,
illuminated land beyond.


Westward Ho!

Just as I had mourned the loss of my sight--
which, in a way, is another kind of death--so I
now mourned the loss of Joe. I experienced,
too, as does everyone who loses a loved one,
pangs of guilt. Why had I, with my damaged
body, survived, and yet Joe, so
healthy, so strong, had succumbed?
I was no less vulnerable to negative thinking
than any other new widow. How often I was
obliged to raise my defensive shield of faith
when thinking about the future. Would there be enough money?
What about health insurance now that neither Joy nor
I were any longer covered by Joe's policy?
How to do the shopping? How to be--as I fully
intended that we should be--genuinely independent?
Now that there was no man to defend us, what about
personal security? What if a robber, a
rapist ...? Up went my shield. Enough,
enough!
The evening after the Vinton funeral--a deeply
moving rite attended, by among so many others,
Joe's Braille School kids--I went
downstairs and curled up in Joe's recliner.
There, wide awake, I persuaded myself, just
momentarily, that Joe was not dead.
It was a scary moment because I recognized how
a mind under great stress can slither from reality
to psychotic illusion. In the Yankton mental
institution I had become familiar with minds that
had wandered into schizophrenic wildernesses and had
failed to return.
Shocked by where my mind was heading, I sat
bolt upright in the chair. I told myself that I was
absolutely not going to go crazy.
There were, of course, inconsequential
moments when I quite forgot that Joe was not around. The
first of these incidents occurred when I was about
to take a bath and could not find the drain plug.
Loudly, I called out for Joe to come and help
me. Then I bit my lower lip until I
tasted blood. I managed to plug the tub quite
effectively with a washcloth.
I needed therapy. I found it, not on a leather
couch, not in the office of a psychologist. I
started to write down, in detail, all the
experiences I had gone through in the past six
years. This writing would be my catharsis and was
to prove a powerful therapy. It was also to become the
raw material for this book.
To allow me to write, I used a Visual
Tek, loaned to me by the Braille School. This
instrument is a type of closed-circuit
television designed and constructed especially for the
partially sighted. The Visual Tek screen
magnifies print forty times. The magnification
allowed me, with my peripheral vision,
to read printed letters--and thus words, one at a time.
I was able, for instance, to read on the screen the
figures on my phone and electricity bills.
Then, by placing my checkbook on the plate below
the screen, I could write the figures and my
signature on the check. The whole process of
paying a bill initially took as long as twenty
minutes. But I could do it myself!
I could not accurately read cursive writing,
which, when thrown onto the screen, appeared like a
string of loops. But with my nose pressed to the
screen I could see, as a series of dots, the
highly magnified lines in a child's exercise
book. When I handwrote anything on lined
paper, the Visual Tek screen showed me that I
was keeping to the lines. The point of my pen
appeared to me on the screen as a moving blob.
Writing with the aid of the Visual Tek
required all the patience I could muster. I
spent hours hunched over the apparatus. The more
I used it the better my writing became.
Harnessing the tiny, foggy window of my
peripheral vision to this marvelous invention gave me
another and critical gateway to the illuminated
world. Thus, I first recorded the story of
Joy's pink socks. Thus I recorded my
feelings when told by Dr. Corbett that I would
be blind for the rest of my life. Thus, over months
and months--eventually moving into years--I was able
to record all the events leading up to and beyond
Joe's gallant struggle for life.
Another reason I was able to move
purposefully through very difficult times following
Joe's death was because we had a new beacon in
front of us. More accurately, it was a
signpost, and it read "California." I began
to chip away at all the decisions that needed to be
made in order to get to California. Back and
forth went the telephoned dialogues. I began
with the same worn phrase: "My husband has just
died of cancer and ..."
Eventually, after meeting with Braille School
business officers andwiththe help of the superintendent,
the insurance figures were given to me. Financially
I was going to be okay--if, as one adviser
cautioned, I were careful, whatever that word meant.
Then came the toughest tasks. What to do with
all Joe's papers, clothes, tools,
bicycle? Then what about our car, bought new
only nine months earlier?
I really loved this car. I'd often rest from
other wearying chores, go out to the car, and just sit in
it. Sometimes I'd start the engine, rev it up, and
press the buttons to move the electric windows
up and down. I longed to shift the car into gear and
move it, if only for a few yards down the
driveway.
Perhaps only an alcoholic thirsting for a
bottle could understand my yearning to drive the car
somewhere, anywhere, away from this house where I'd shed
so many tears, experienced so much pain. Oh, if
only I could have my sight back for just one day,
an hour, even a few minutes! Thus I mused
as I agonized over getting rid of a car I
couldn't drive!
It was also hard for me to handle Joe's
bicycle. How he'd loved that bike. He'd
taken it camping, taken it to the mountains. Joe's
hunting gun would go to Jay.
With each touch of clothing, furniture,
whatever, a decision was now made. This item would
be packed and taken with us. This furniture would be
sold. These clothes would be given away.
Joy made her own decisions. She decided
to give almost all of her toys, mostly stuffed
animals collected from her early childhood,
to the little kids in the Braille School dorms. She
knew and had befriended many of them. She picked out specific animals for specific children. Then she
personally handed them over to the kids of her choice.
"Oh, Mom," she exulted, "it made me
feel so warm inside."
I hugged my generous daughter. Then we set
about filling her little red wagon with clothes, all
washed and pressed, of course: a mix of Joe's
clothes, Joy's clothes, and my own. These we
hauled to the Braille School where they were distributed
to the neediest children.
Through advertisements in the local newspaper,
a yard sale, and a consolidated auction, our
possessions were pared down to a few pieces of
furniture and a few crates that could be
economically transported across most of the
continent.
To allow Joy to complete her second grade
schooling, we remained in Vinton until the end
of May. As soon as she came back from school
each day, Joy got down to the business of sorting
and packing. We barely stopped for meals.
Preparation of meals presented no
problem because the freezer was full of food, much of
it cooked by friends. However, Joy did promise
herself that, once in California, she wouldn't eat
ham again until she was a teenager! Ham was the
easiest meat for me to serve.
I could have saved a lot of energy agonizing
over the disposal of the car. Dad bought it. His own
car, he told me on the phone, had reached
retirement age. The Blue Book was consulted
and the deal made in a couple of minutes. My
parents would fly out to Iowa, hand over their return
tickets to Joy and to me, and then he and Mom would
spend a leisurely four days driving back
to California.
It was a perfect solution, as I told Dad
after he assured me that the car to which I was so
attached would be the car that would be meeting us at
Los Angeles airport.
"And you'll promise to drive us to our new
home," I insisted.
"Our new home?" queried Joy, who'd been
listening to the phone call. I could almost see her
elevated eyebrows. "Why didn't you tell me
you'd bought a house?"
"I haven't," I told her. "Not yet, but
we will. I'm dreaming about it."
Joy slid down from the packing case upon which
she'd been sitting and stood in front of me. I
was sitting on another crate. She said,
"Please, Mom, let me look at the house
before you buy it."
I reassured her that I wouldn't consider
purchasing a house without her first checking it out.
"Your eyes are my eyes," I reminded her.
She leaned into me, her arms around my waist.
"Oh, Mom," she said. "It's sometimes hard
to be your eyes."
"I know," I told her, "but you're doing
beautifully."
"Am I?"
"You're a gift straight from heaven."
I moved my hands up to her shoulder blades,
and she asked me what I was doing.
"Feeling for feathers," I told her.
"Feathers?"
"Aren't wings made from feathers?"
Both of us giggled. It was a brief and joyous
interlude before we resumed the tiresome labor of
sorting and packing.
It was a few days short of three
months after Joe's death that the movers arrived.
The crates contained dishes, pots and pans,
bedding, and the personal things that we'd need for
setting up house in Bakersfield.
The only spot in the empty house that
provoked any feelings of nostalgia was the
second-floor balcony where I stood alone
for a few minutes listening to the birds. On cue,
the mourning dove sang a few sad notes.
Empty, curtainless rooms echoed my
footsteps. I deliberately shut down my
mind on remembrances, the bright and sparkling ones,
the sorrowful ones. There'd be time enough later
to recall time's passage here.
The moving van arrived on the same day my
parents arrived to pick up the car. They handed over
their return tickets to Los Angeles and set
off almost immediately for the four-day road journey
home.
With us through much of the time that we'd spent preparing
for our departure were four women who would, I
knew, be lifetime friends. They were Cathy
Hummel, Deb Englehart, Deb Wilberg,
and Brenda Armstrong. For years we had relished
each other's company and had shared confidences; our
husbands had partied and had played sports together.
We had gone to church together, raised children together,
wept and laughed together. They had taken Joy in
when Joe was sick and when I had lost my sight.
They had shopped for me, cooked for me, cleaned
house for me, and prayed with me.
All else but these dear friends I could leave behind
without heartache. Cathy took Joy and me to her
home. We'd stay with her for the next week
to give plenty of time for the moving van to reach
Bakersfield and for my parents to drive nearly
two thousand miles. There was also one other visit
that I felt obliged to make. I'd promised
Dr. Corbett that I'd see him again before leaving
the state.
Cathy drove me to the University of Iowa
Hospital, but even as she parked the car I found
myself very reluctant to re-enter a building within which
such traumatic events had occurred. As we
pushed open the hospital's doors my nostrils
were assailed again by the unique odor that I had come
to hate because it triggered such frightening memories.
Dr. Corbett received me as if I were a
VIP. He expressed his sympathy over the
loss of Joe and listened attentively
as I briefly told him of Joe's courage.
I illustrated my report with the story of the carol
singers. He then told me how he and his
colleagues were still researching the ailment that had
deprived me of vision. He had already arranged for
my medical file to be transferred to the
Department of Ophthalmology at the University
of California at Davis. A Dr. John
Keltner, a professor of ophthalmology and
neurology, would be in charge of my case.
"Very sound man," said Dr. Corbett, "and
I'll be keeping in touch with him."
As I stood up, he came around his desk and
held my hand in both his. For a few moments the
eminent physician seemed at a loss for words.
Then he said simply, "I will not forget you,
Joan--ever."
I almost hugged him, for I knew he had given
me the very best of his skills, and I knew that it
had really pained him when he had been obliged
to tell me that I would not see again. However, I
thought that a hug might have embarrassed him, and perhaps
been a breach of medical etiquette.
In a nearby surgical office more blood was
drawn from my arm for a final test asked for by Dr.
Corbett. Then I told Cathy that there was a
nurse I wanted her to meet and that her name was
Katy.
"If we're lucky," I said, "we'll find
her at a nurses' station in the neurology wing.
We'll take elevator F to the second
floor, and then take a left."
Cathy was properly impressed when I became
her guide, and she laughed when I told her,
"I could find my way around this hospital even
if I were blindfolded."
We were lucky. Katy walked right into us. We
hugged and kissed. I introduced my dearest
Vinton friend to my favorite nurse.
Then Katy astounded me by saying to Cathy,
"You, too, look like a practicing Christian."
After I had gasped I asked, "Since when
did agnostic Katy become a reader of
souls?"
Katy laughed infectiously. "Joan will
tell you I was as bitter as gall over my
messed-up marriage. It's okay, I've
forgiven him even though he's still a jerk." Another
laugh. "Not sure whether some of my new friends would
approve of my calling anyone a jerk
--even when he is one. Joan will give you the first
two reels of my story. Vegas setting.
Blackjack and booze. Joan's partly
responsible for the change--my forgiving him for what
he did to me. I'm going to--"
I interjected, "That's such nonsense,
Katy. It was you who saved my sanity." I
turned to Cathy. "When I was here she read my
letters aloud--including letters from the blind kids. We
soaked each other with our tears."
Katy's cheek was against mine once more. "I'm
so terribly sorry about your Joe, honey. Just
remember when you're lying under one of those
California palm trees that I'm thinking of
you--like every day."
"Stop making me cry," I protested.
It was too brief a time with Katy, as it always
is with friends of the heart.
Then came the day of our departure. Joe's
parents came down from South Dakota to see us
off. They drove us to the Cedar Rapids
airport. For me there was, of course, no
opportunity for last looks at the tree-lined
avenues, the familiar stores, or the handsome
red-bricked civic buildings. My only
recollection of this last drive through pretty
Vinton was the whistle of a train and the scent of
lilacs.
While on the way to Cedar Rapids, I did
allow my mind to survey the more significant
Iowa milestones--my arrival here as a bride,
starting my work with the blind children I had grown to love,
Joy's birth in the local hospital, the day
when my eyesight began to fade and fail, and
Joe's dying ...
Alongside me, Joy was obviously unfazed
by nostalgic thoughts. "Oh, Mom," she cried,
"can we go to the beach real soon?"
I replied, "First we've got to find a new
home. And you promised to help me, remember?"
"Oh yes," said Joy, "I forgot. But I
just can't wait to get to a beach."
I reminded her that we'd be staying with her
California grandparents, possibly for quite a
while, as we scouted Bakersfield for "just the right
place."
Just before we boarded the airplane there was one more
tearful farewell when Joe's parents embraced
us. Joe's father, Ken, was holding me when he
said, "If there's anything, anything at
all that you need or anything we can do for you, please
promise to get in touch with us."
I thankfully gave him my promise.
Ninety minutes after leaving Vinton, Joy and
I were seated in an airplane thundering down a
runway. As the wheels left the ground and the
plane soared, a new and extraordinary feeling
overwhelmed me. It was a sudden sense of lightness
of spirit. No, it was more than that. It was as if I'd
left behind a crushing burden. I felt, or so it
seemed, the need to rub sore shoulders,
to straighten my back (which was still pressed against the
seat by the angle of flight and the thrust of the jet
engines).
Enshrouded though my eyes were by a veil of
darkness, I became deeply conscious of space
--space for breathing deeply, for movement, for
adventure.
"What do you see through the window?" I asked
Joy as the airplane leveled out.
"Just sky," she said.
"You can't see the ground?"
"No, there are clouds covering the ground." She
paused and then added, "It's funny, isn't it?
Only we can see the blue sky and the sunshine."
She corrected herself. "I mean I can see it.
But I see it for you, Mom, don't I?"
"Well, today I sort of see it too," I
said.
I wasn't sure she understood. But I was
learning that Joy, who'd been obliged to mature
so quickly, was understanding a lot more than I too often
gave her credit for.
She squeezed my hand and said, "I'm so
excited, Mom."
"Me too," I said. "Me too."


Letters to Cathy

On July 4, 1989, I audiotaped this
letter to Cathy Hummel in Vinton.

... I'm lying in my swimsuit on the enclosed patio of my very own home! Water's
tinkling and splashing from a nearby fountain in a
manmade lake across the street. Whirr of wings
from hummingbird feeder hanging from beam above my
head. Temperature in low nineties.
Humidity zero. Have your eyes turned
green?
My friend Louise--the Basque gal with fiery
eyes and emotions to match--found this condominium for
us. It's in a new complex, typically
Californian--tree-lined avenues, several
swimming pools, tennis courts (within earshot when
the wind's from the south, with barbecue grill within
smelling distance when wind's in the north),
clubhouse, shopping center only a block
away, Joy's school not much farther. She's still
on summer vacation.
Kissin' cousins and friends moved us into the place
in one day. The next morning Joy awakened me
and confirmed the choice by declaring, "Mom, doesn't
it just feel like home!" It did! It does!
The place was professionally decorated by a
friend. She has the kind of flair and taste I
approve of. Seafoam green carpet (how do I
know?--cause she told me, of course!) and
curtains to match. I even had my say about the
pictures on the walls. I'd always loved
seascapes. I simply like to know that they're there.
Cathy, you're one of the few who would understand what
happened to me in the first days after we moved in.
I spent hours out here on the patio doing nothing
at all. The sun enfolded me in a warm
blanket. I let my mind drain itself of all
emotions.
Been thinking a lot about Joe. There were times
when Joe could have been a lot gentler with me. I
can see now that what he did was push me so that I
could be independent. His attitude strengthened me.
Perhaps that is what he was trying to do. Perhaps he had
a premonition of his death and he saw that I had
to be toughened. We love people when they treat us like
kittens and stroke us. We resent it when they
kick our butts, as Joe would have phrased it.
The kickers are the ones who get us moving.
I'm meandering, Cathy, as I often do when I
audiotape letters. Anyway, in the first week in my new home I did almost nothing except
allow the past to sort of drift away and then
tilt my chin to embrace the future, whatever it
is, wherever it takes me.
Thank God for the insurance money, which paid for our
home, and I've splurged on a few things, the
most important of which is a Visual Tek
closed-circuit TV, which cost me $2,500 and
is worth every cent! It gives me a critical
peephole to the sighted world. I'm also
continuing the therapy of writing down the story of the
Vinton years. I believe reliving the darkest
times (literally, mentally and spiritually) is
contributing to a process of self-healing. In the
long term the V-Tek will prove a lot more
economical than a shrink!
In your letter, Cathy, you asked about our
security. You've been reading too many stories
about crime in California. This is not LA or
the Bay Area and we're still pretty law-abiding
here. We've attached bells to the gate facing the
street, so I'm always given warning when someone is
approaching the front door. I don't open it
to strangers unless they can identify themselves as
messengers--UPS guys et also.
You ask about my health. Mostly feeling
pretty good. Not yet ready to run a marathon,
but I am swimming in the pool with Joy, who is
developing into a really good swimmer. I've so
often bumped my head on the tiled sides of the
pool that I'm ready to patent edge-side
cushions like the ones on a pool table. Also,
I've been to Davis to see the chief
ophthalmologist at the university, a Dr.
John Keltner, who is now in charge of my
case. He seems to be no less intrigued
than was Dr. Corbett. Liked him a lot--
quiet, caring, competent.
What else, Cathy, my dear? I'm trying
to be good. Sometimes have some confusing thoughts,
especially when a strong arm tugs me out of the
pool and a vibrant male voice invites me
to a barbecue!
Love to you and Dennis--also to the two Debs and
to Brenda. Blow kisses to everyone I know in that
little town with a big heart.
Joan

Letters were so very important to me. I became quite
frustrated when Joy was not around to collect the
mail from our box--one of about thirty boxes
placed some two hundred yards from my front
door. It was Joy who decided that it was time for
me to collect the mail myself. She marked out the
route to the mailboxes by helping me to feel two
fire hydrants, with my cane pacing out the
sidewalk to an appropriate right turn,
listening to the sound of another fountain, picking up the
fuzzy shadows of some trees where I needed
to cross a street, feeling a
V-shaped slice in the curb, and so on.
I was getting quite cocky about my mobility, but
that old caution about pride heralding a fall is
no less applicable to someone carrying a white
cane. What my cane did not tell me one
morning was that a gardener had parked his truck within a
stone's throw of the mailboxes, and that the steel
handle of his Weed Eater was sticking out over the
sidewalk.
The blow across the bridge of my nose and
forehead threw me to the ground. I was so dazed and bewildered that I had no idea where I was.
I'd quite forgotten the important count of paces
from the last corner. I didn't even know what had
hit me. Indeed, my first thought was that I'd been
mugged. Farther along the street I could hear
gardeners mowing a lawn. I somehow managed to find
my way back home.
The bruises and the cut healed well, but the
accident was a setback to my self-esteem.
Neighbors soon learned that the new owner of
number sixty-two was a bit crazy. When
frustrated by misplacing the house keys, for
example, or discovering that Joy had failed
to replace the milk container in the refrigerator,
I usually screamed into a pillow. But I
suspected that the neighbors sometimes heard me.
I could almost hear them sighing, "Ah, well, there
she goes once more--probably misplaced the
Scotch tape this time."

November 7, 1989. A letter audiotaped
to Cathy Hummel in Vinton:

... So you scold me for not "doing anything."
But I am, and it's exciting. I've just signed
up for a speech class at the junior college
here. I met a fabulous professor, Dr.
Chuck Wall, who's blind but has four master's
degrees and a doctorate in business.
Anyway, Chuck asked me to help him with a
class of blind people. My first reaction was
negative. I felt I'd given enough years
to teaching the blind. But I changed my mind when he
told me that in this classroom was the latest
model of a talking computer. They had talking
computers at the Braille School, but I never
learned how to use them. This incredible machine
actually talks back to you in a robot voice.
It tells you what you've typed.
However, I wondered whether there was any
purpose in my learning how to use this
sophisticated machine because I could never afford
to buy one. It costs an arm and a leg.
But then a miracle! We're told to expect
miracles every day, aren't we? We've had so
many, but this one was major league.
It all began with a terrible tragedy about
fifteen years ago when three
twenty-one-year-old girls were killed on a
street here in Bakersfield. One of the girls was
Maria, the daughter of a Dutch family who were
members of my dad's church. Maria was one of
my closest friends. I was a student in South
Dakota when Maria and the two other girls were
walking away from a restaurant and a car plowed
into them. Maria was killed instantly, and her two
friends died shortly after the three girls had been
mowed down. Mom phoned me with the news of this
tragedy, which was big headlines here. I remember
so well how I walked across to the college
chapel in Vermillion. I prayed and wept
alone for an hour, perhaps two hours, I can't be
sure.
Well, as I said, all this happened a long
time ago. Then, three Sundays back, after
church here, Maria's parents, Leonard and
Margaret Van Doorn, came up to me and said
they had heard I was interested in a talking
computer.
Mr. Van Doorn, who still has a very strong
Dutch accent, said, "Ve, my vife and me,
vould like much to give you a talking computer."
Mrs. Van Doorn said, "Yes, ve like to do
that."
I was just bowled over. I told them that they
couldn't possibly know what these computers cost and
I couldn't accept such an extravagant gift.
We're talking about thousands of dollars.
Mr. Van Doorn took my arm and said,
"Now, you lizzen good, Joan. God has blessed
us. Ve can do no more for our Maria, zo you let us
do thiz for you, yez?" He added that their friends and my
family's friends, Ron and Nedra Lehr--also
farmers--wanted to come in on this incredible gift.
Hugs! Kisses! Tears! Wonderment! So
I have this absolutely incredible talking computer
at my home. I'm taking lessons at the
college on how to operate it, and I hope to be
able to help other blind students use it.
Am enjoying a speech class, too. Mom,
who's taking an art class at the junior
college, drives me there. The other
twenty-five people in the class seem to be
intrigued to have a blind woman learning about voice and
diction. I always sit at the end of the second row
from the front. Sometimes I'm late, but they always
leave this desk for me.
After about five sessions, the professor asked
us all to talk about ourselves for three minutes.
Most of my classmates are hoping to become
radio announcers. There're some from overseas
hoping to improve their communication skills.
Boy, oh boy! Which experience should I bowl
them over with?
The others in the class were to be allowed to read
their speeches. I was going to have to remember mine.
I gave the mini-speech a lot of thought. Then
I recalled an experience shared with Joy a few
weeks earlier. I typed out the speech on my
talking computer, which played it back to me several
times until it was memorized, more or less.
I could sense some tension among my
classmates when it was my turn to speak. Most
of them had tended to avoid me, perhaps assuming that
since I'm blind I'm also half-witted. I
found the podium quite easily. Believe you might
be interested in what I said. Here it is:
"Good afternoon.
"I'm going to talk about a recent experience
at Pismo Beach. When my nine-year-old
daughter, Joy, and I walked the beach
barefooted, she pounced on shells and told me
about their colors and their shapes. It was quite cool that
early morning, with eddies of fog coming in from the sea
--so Joy told me. It is nice for me
to walk in the surf because I love the feel of sand
between my toes and I can count on there being nothing
to bump into. We reached the wharf, where Joy now
gave me a guiding elbow.
"We sat on a splintery wooden bench and
listened to the music of the waves. Then the sun
came through and warmed our faces. It was a gentle
time for both of us. Joy felt close and comfortable
enough to speak of something that was troubling her.
""Yes?"' I said, encouraging her.
"Joy half buried her face in my
windbreaker, and said, "Lots of kids tell me
that they feel sorry for me--having a father who died
and a blind mother. I hate it when they tell
me that."
"I bent my head until my cheek touched her
fog-dampened hair and suggested that other kids were
really wanting to be kind. I told her that I
didn't like it, either, when people smothered me with
sympathy.
"We got up and walked again, her arm still around
my waist. I was happy that my small daughter
could share these deep feelings with me. What she had
told me made me more aware that she, too, was
having to deal with difficulties related to my
blindness.
"That morning of our walking on Pismo Beach
will remain with me, for the passing of this hour of my
life contained moments of shared beauty, shared
sadness, and shared love."
Cathy, there was such absolute silence in the
room following this mini-speech that I wondered
whether I had bored my classmates or
embarrassed them. Then someone at the back of the
classroom clapped, then they all applauded.
I smiled, but I had to pretend to look at my
shoes as I made my way back to the end seat in
the second row from the front. I didn't want
them to see my tears.
There's a P.s. to this little cameo of my life
down here in California. Most of my
classmates have now become my friends.
Dear love to you, Cathy, as always,
Joan

Several months after I had first met the
brilliant and blind Professor Chuck Wall,
he and his wife, Di, invited Joy and me
to spend the weekend in their log cabin in the High
Sierras, which was about a two-hour drive from
Bakersfield. Only a four-wheel-drive
vehicle could get up that steep and winding dirt
road.
As we traveled, Chuck told us a little of his
life and how, in his late teens, he had had such
trouble reading that he'd been labeled retarded.
He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which
inevitably destroys eyesight. What excited
him was to know that he wasn't dumb after all. He
went on to become a superior scholar and gained his
doctorate in business. He recently ran for
mayor of Bakersfield, and came in third.
When we reached the cabin, which I think was about
5,000 feet above sea level, the
air was like chilled wine and was perfumed by fir
trees. The cabin itself was rustic, constructed of
logs, with a loft, kitchen, and guest bedroom.
Chuck and Di have channeled a small stream just
outside, so that its bubbling can lull them to sleep.
While Di and Joy found work to do in the garden
and the kitchen, Chuck called me to the balcony where
he sat me in one of his homemade rockers.
"Aah," I sighed, "the sounds of silence."
"Silence! You're not listening, my girl," said
Chuck.
"You must learn to listen to the song of life.
Can't you hear that blue jay over on the left, and
that warbling whistle is a mountain bluebird. Then
that unmusical fella trilling away on the right
is almost certainly a loggerhead shrike."
Chuck had taped scores of birdsongs heard
near his cabin, and he is able to name them as
accurately as a conductor can pick out any
orchestral instrument that's off-key. On this
visit, and on later ones, I began to be able
to identify the different song birds.
One had the sense that this was Chuck's and Di's
mountain, and in their contentment in the high country they
were more like teenagers. Their laughter, their love for
each other and life, and their high enthusiasm made
their cabin so vibrant and exciting.
Since these weekends spent with the Walls,
Chuck has become internationally famous from coining
the phrase, "Today do a random act of senseless
kindness!" He thought up this idea after hearing a
radio news story about "another random act of
senseless violence." He assigned one of his
classes to undertake "a random act of senseless
kindness" as a project. The idea really caught
on. Now, all across the nation and overseas, people are
turning the familiar negative news phrase
into a positive personal commitment.
A woman in his class recorded an amusing
random act of senseless kindness. She had just parked
her car in a full lot when she noticed another
car circling for space. The woman backed her
car and waved in the circling car. She herself was
obliged to park a long distance from the classroom.
He told me, too, that a very intrigued
Princess Diana had been inquiring about his
random-act-of-senseless-kindness project. Many
of the volunteers who went to the aid of victims
of the recent devastating earthquake in Los
Angeles wore T-shirts bearing
Chuck's slogan. I believe that the
brilliant and ebullient Chuck could run for the
U.s. Senate on this slogan alone!
To me and to so many, Chuck is one special
guy. He's my sage of the mountains. He always
leaves me with an original thought. "Joan," he
said to me on one occasion, "remember that those of us
who walk in darkness or twilight must turn on
our own lights."

Here's an audiotaped letter to Cathy dated
November 30, 1991:

... I'm becoming the Merry Widow. Fine with
me if you now want to put on Franz Lehar
music while you listen to this tape.
Six weeks ago I went to my first dance.
Actually, I was dragged to it by my friend, Sandy,
who's into country and western. I'd learned the
basic steps when I was in high school, but felt
sure that I'd forgotten everything.
Well, we'd hardly gotten ourselves into the dance
hall when this guy with a Southern accent and cowboy
boots (sandy told me) came up and grabbed
my hand. I was trying to tell him that I was here
only to listen to the band, but Sandy blurted out that I
was "a pro."
Not sure whether this guy thought I'd come from the
red light district (if Bakersfield has
one!) or whether I'd understudied Juliet
Prowse. So Sandy pushed me onto the floor and
I pleaded with Mr. Cowboy Whoever not to let go
of my hand.
"Trust me," he said. I'd always been
taught that when a strange guy says those two
words, you don't just walk to the door--you run!
Well, I did some trusting as he whirled me
around to a familiar beat. Memory clicked into the
right groove, and I felt I was performing
reasonably well. Then the music stopped and
guess what? This cowboy gentleman (huh!)
left me in the middle of the dance floor! I think
he tossed a "Thank you, ma'am" over his left
shoulder.
But now what do I do? I listen for mocking
laughter. I heard some and I started walking
toward it. Yes, it was Sandy. She told me she
was so amused that she had had to run to the bathroom!
The good thing I got out of all this was appreciating
that Mr. Cowboy Whatever had
obviously not realized I was blind! In fact he
came back later and asked me to dance again.
Then I've been to a number of parties with new
friends, mostly encountered poolside. Tracy and
Sheri both have daughters about the same age as
Joy.
Dearly beloved Louise, my bestest friend, as
Joy would put it, encourages me to continue
to write. She takes me shopping for clothes,
takes me to spas, takes us to the beach, and she
arrives at the house when I most need company.
Once I phoned Louise at three in the
morning just to talk! I felt desperately
lonely and--well--beaten up and miserably
discouraged. How many folks can you call for a chat
at that time of night?
But, Cathy, I'm now going to confess something
awful and how I risked this wonderful friendship.
It was quite a small incident that caused the near
disaster. Joy came rushing and screaming into the
house. Eventually she blurted out that she had
pinched her thumb on the front gate. A pinched
thumb can be darned sore, we all know that. Instead
of coming to me, though, Joy went to Louise, and I
heard Louise saying that she'd help make the
thumb better.
Instead of being grateful for Louise's care,
I felt resentment and jealousy. Heck! I
thought, aren't I the child's mother? I should be attending
to Joy's hurt. I shouted at my daughter
to stop crying and to let me see her thumb.
"But you can't see, Mom."
Joy's retort stabbed my heart.
Louise said quietly, "It's okay,
Joan. There isn't any blood and she can move
it. I'm just going to bathe the thumb under a cold
faucet."
I tugged Joy away from my friend. My voice
was high pitched as I shouted, "Stay out of this,
Louise. I can handle it. I'm her mother. Just you
remember that ..."
Joy was softly crying again. She was obviously
upset by my raised voice. I pulled her to the
bathroom. Then I heard the sound of the front
door closing, followed by the sound of Louise's
car starting up and pulling away.
Cathy, I felt sick! I mean, totally
nauseated! What on earth had I done? I
knew I'd hurt Louise deeply. Yet I
now tried to make excuses. Wasn't
I quite capable of looking after a pinched thumb?
Hadn't I been a lifeguard in my college
years? Hadn't I taught CPR to the staff at
the Braille School? What right had Louise to play
mother to my daughter? Why should I call and
apologize? Louise was going to have to call me.
Three days passed and no word from Louise.
Four miserable days passed. On the fifth day
I was ready to admit that I'd been an
absolute jackass! Somewhere, not far removed from
panic, I began to wonder whether Louise would
ever speak to me again.
What really shook me up, Cathy, was
discovering what an ungrateful witch (spell that
with a B!) I could be. Me! Moi!
Who was it who said, "We've all got a
potential Hitler and Mother Teresa in us?"
Of course a very, very penitent Joan called the
dearest friend of her childhood. Louise had to have
dropped anything she was doing, because within record time
she was at my home, forgiving me and hugging me.
Thank God!
Dearest love,
Joan

In January 1991, I wrote a letter
to Cathy on my talking computer. There were a few
misspellings. That amazing robot inside the
machine that reads back what I've written is
not yet the world's best speller! He's
completely foxed by words like "kibbutz."
However, here are several paragraphs from my
(edited) computer-written letter to Cathy, dated
January 1991:

... As promised, I'm really getting on
with the story of my life. Well into the Vinton
years. Amazing that something begun as a thought
process when I was in the hospital is now
getting into type. I find it so hard to relive
some of those days that the tears well up.
Joy sometimes finds me crying while at the
machine. She wants to know why I have to write about
sad things. I tell her that it is good for me.
Difficult to explain the word catharsis to a
ten-year-old.
Oh, gosh, Cathy! How I embarrassed her
the other day.
I needed a white blouse, so I took Joy
along to a department store to help me
choose one. Joy went deep into the store to find
out where they sold these things. Out of the tiny corner of
my eye, which allows me to see light and blobby
shapes, I saw what I assumed was a
saleslady in a skirt and blazer.
I stopped and said, "I wonder if you can help
me? I'm looking for a blouse."
I was going into some detail about the kind of garment
I needed when Joy returned and started tugging at
my sleeve.
In a horrified stage whisper Joy said,
"Mom, you're talking to a mannequin!"
Poor Joy was so embarrassed because a number
of nearby shoppers had to have heard the monologue.
Oh, and I must tell you about the
Joanmobile. Well, I spoke some time ago
at a service club, and afterward one of the members
came up to me and said that he built three-wheel
bikes--bigwheelers for grown-ups. He asked
me if I'd like one.
"How much?" asked the frugal me. "My
pleasure," he said. I'd all but forgotten about
this offer when, just before Christmas, this guy presents
me with what Joy calls her Corvette and what
I call my Joanmobile. It's so cool.
It has two side-by-side saddles and is
powered by four pedals. Under the seats there is a
basket for groceries. It's steered by a bar
handle.
Naturally Joy is the navigator. She's
also the chief pedal-pusher--though she doesn't know
this, and so please don't tell her! It's now a
breeze to go grocery shopping.
You were amused by my telling you that I'm becoming
more and more the Merry Widow. I'm really enjoying
socializing. Been to a few more dances with the
girls. Then I must tell you about something that
happened to me in Sacramento. I traveled up
there by Amtrak (they looked after me as if I were
royalty, and I wrote to the people at the top
to tell them so) to see my ophthalmologist,
Dr. Keltner. He asked me if I'd mind
answering questions from his medical students. Of course
I agreed--same old questions, and same old
answers.
After this was over I mentioned to Dr. Keltner that
I'd been doing some public speaking. He was
intrigued because his department is always needing funds
for the expansion of facilities and charitable work.
He asked me to meet his chief
fund-raiser, Joan Hadley. I soon
realized that I was meeting someone of exceptional
grace and charm.
I gave several talks in Sacramento--
including a Rotary Club speech, a speech
to the physicians associated with the university
ophthalmology department, and a TV interview--
to help raise funds for the Medical Center. I
usually stayed overnight at Joan Hadley's
lovely home. After one visit, when I'd
made a speech that seemed to have been well received,
she and another friend, Carrie Lou, decided on the
spur of the moment to go to "high tea" in San
Francisco's famous St. Francis
Hotel. We were like kids playing hookey as we
boarded the train for the Bay Area. Our first stop
was at Saks Fifth Avenue (where I bought some
perfume), our second at fabulous
Nordstrom's (live piano music!) where we
headed for the fine dresses department.
While I was trying on those beautiful gowns
I felt like Cinderella herself. "Where's the
pumpkin coach?" I asked my friends, who kidded
me that I should be modeling for Yves Saint
Laurent. But Cathy, those garments I didn't
have the cash to buy did funny things to me. I
felt something I'd not felt for a long time. I
felt sensuous, feminine.
Write soon. I'm no longer allowing
anyone to tell me to feel guilty about--well--
about things past. They are past, Cathy. I
don't have to remind myself of that every day anymore.
Lots of love from Sexy Sue--also known as
Joan.


The Theater of My Mind

Through Joe's struggle against his mortal disease,
through my period of mourning, I'd unconsciously
suppressed desires for male companionship.
But now, in a crowded mall, or while sitting in
a bus or in a restaurant, I was aware of men
again. I enjoyed the bracing scent of aftershave. I
was conscious of the male touch. If I were
introduced to a man with a pleasant laugh or an
attractive voice, I found myself holding
onto a hand a second or two longer than was
required by courtesy. This was not necessarily a
flirtatious gesture. It was simply
that my sense of touch helped me compensate for my
loss of sight.
What I was still having a hard time doing was
persuading myself that I was still attractive.
Surely, went my foolish thoughts in darker
moments, my sightless eyes have lost their sparkle.
Surely the experience of watching my robust
husband fade and die had left some scars upon my
face--not physical ones, but telltale signs
bespeaking trials and hurts.
Hadn't I read somewhere that a face presents
a map of one's life experiences? If there be
validity in this proposition (and I doubt it),
did my face now reveal the sorrow and the horror
of the recent years? were friends and kin too timid to tell me that my eyes were sunken and
dark-rimmed, my mouth downcast when in repose?
I suspected that the devil himself planted these
silly but disturbing notions in my mind.
There are very few people who can picture their own
faces. Instant recognition in a mirror is
obviously no problem, but I've yet to meet
anyone who is able to describe him or herself as
others see them.
Yet curiously I am able to recall my own
mirror-image of the time before I lost my sight.
I like what I recall. I see blonde hair
lying across my shoulders. I see a nose
of--well--quite respectable proportions (ha,
ha!), a slightly cleft chin, high
cheekbones, and a smile--ah yes, a smile!
I happen to have had the best of all
orthodontists--the Creator of All Things,
including teeth!
No dentist ever suggested braces; in fact,
the one who was responsible for giving me regular
checkups throughout my teenage years complained that
if all his patients were like me he'd be carrying
"Hungry and Homeless" placards down the main
street. I can see him now, waving his tiny
examining mirror and saying, "Joan, I don't
know if you have webbed toes. I don't know if you
have birthmarks in unusual places, but I can
tell you that you've got absolutely perfect
teeth." His nurse and I joined in his laughter.
Since I liked to smile and since I was doing
a lot of smiling once again, why did I give
any heed to those negative whispers inside my
head that hinted I was a close cousin of
Cinderella's ugly stepsisters?
But then there was an incident, trifling enough, which
did wonders for me. I was taking a walk in the
far corner of our condominium complex with an
elderly neighbor who was a sometime baby-sitter
for Joy. The sounds of saws and hammers
indicated that we were passing a building under
repair or construction. The banging and buzzing of
labor suddenly ceased, and I heard whistles--a
whole chorus of wolf whistles!
"Just who are they whistling at?" I asked my
friend, whose elbow I was grasping. My first and quite
genuine presumption was that a mini-skirted
teenager was swaying her hips on the sidewalk
somewhere ahead of us.
An explosion of laughter from my companion.
"Who do you think, my dear?" she exclaimed.
"Certainly not me!"
"You're telling me that ..."
"Indeed I am," said my friend, drowning my
astonishment with more laughter. Then she added, "Perhaps
you'd like to sue half a dozen brawny and
bare-chested young men for harassment?"
I giggled in disbelief and from embarrassment.
By now we had moved some thirty or forty paces
beyond the construction site. However, one man continued
to whistle. To convince myself that he was really
directing his unsubtle salutation to me, I
stopped, turned, smiled and waved. My
gestures prompted another chorus of whistles--
the kind of ear-piercers made by inserting a thumb and
middle finger under the tongue.
It was a moment or two before we could continue
walking, because laughter almost crippled us. The
whistling died only when we had turned a corner;
those guys up on the scaffolding had no idea
what a boost they had given to my morale.
However, gains in self-esteem these days came
from more than wolf whistles. I was receiving an
increasing number of invitations to speak to different
groups. I'd started with church groups, then I'd
received a number of invitations from schools. Now
I was getting requests from service clubs and
associations of various kinds.
With the help of my talking computer and a tape
recorder I worked diligently on refining my
talks. Naturally I gave a very different
talk to sixth-grade kids than to Rotarians.
But the theme was the same. I saw how important
it was neither to belittle the difficulties and challenges
I had faced nor the problems likely
being faced by some people in my audiences; but I was
anxious to promote and project my belief that,
whatever the challenges, whatever the hurts, life
still goes on, grimly at times, but also
triumphantly.
Here I'm oversimplifying the theme of my
talks. Sometimes I'd speak for an hour.
Sometimes I was given only twenty minutes, and
I might perhaps be obliged to compete with the rattle
of teacups.
Two of my speeches in this period were to have a
major impact on my life. By the fall of
1991 word had gotten around Bakersfield and
communities not far distant that there was this woman
(me!) in the area who had a very unusual
personal story to tell and that she knew how
to tell it.
But here I must backpedal and speak of my
connection with the blind celebrity Tom Sullivan.
When I was in college in South Dakota, and
later, working at the Braille School, I'd read and
reread Tom's best-selling autobiography,
If You Could See What I Hear. I'd
also seen the movie based on his book. I'd
seen him on television when he had co-hosted
Good Morning America, and I'd seen him as
a featured actor in half a dozen movies.
I knew him to be a composer, performer, athlete
--and, as someone once put it, "almost everything
else except a brain surgeon." In recent
years he'd become one of the most in-demand
speakers on the lecture circuit.
For me, and for so many others who are disabled, Tom Sullivan's extraordinary achievements were a
tremendous inspiration.
My lawyer brother, Jon, was in the audience
when Tom spoke to a convention of business people in
Bakersfield. Jon is not given to using
superlatives, but he pulled out all the stops
when he spoke to me about Tom's lecture. I
was asked by another member of Jon's legal
firm, a man who knew about my own modest
lectures, if I'd be interested in getting in
touch with Tom. Phone calls were made, and a few
mornings later I found myself speaking to Tom on
the phone.
This first call--now one of scores from and to Tom
Sullivan--lasted ninety minutes! What
amazed me about this man, who was to become such a
dear and influential friend, was that he was so
unhurried. He was genuinely intrigued by my own
story. This man, who was honored by the high and the
mighty and, as I was later to learn, by the lowliest
and the suffering, asked penetrating questions about my
difficulties, questions that no one else had thought
to ask me.
I told him about my hopes of writing a
book and of my daring to hope that I, too, could
become an inspirational speaker. He promised
to help me with both aspirations.
He said, "Joan, there are tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands, who are waiting to be given
a lift by the story that only you can tell."
"Only me?" I queried.
"Only you," repeated Tom, "because all of us
are absolutely unique."
This phrase was branded into my mind.
Tom went on to tell me of some of the people he had
been able to touch with his own story and activities.
One special focus of his interest has been children
--blind and otherwise disabled children. He'd raised a
great deal of money for a school for blind children, and I
was fascinated to learn how he and others were helping
disabled children to ski in Colorado.
"Kids who have lost limbs, kids with cancer--
we bring them in from all parts of the country and get
them on the slopes. They revel in the snow, in
sledding and skiing. They forget they're crippled.
They forget they're meant to be dying. They start
living again--tasting every drop in the cup, even when,
as with some of them, the cup of life is almost
drained."
"But you surely don't ski yourself?" I
asked.
"I surely do," he replied, "and everyone
gets out of the way when they see two skiers coming
down the slope, one wearing a placard reading
"BLIND SKIER" and the other wearing a placard
reading "BLIND GUIDE"!"
Tom's open-throated laughter was so
infectious my eyes were streaming.
"Well, Joan, we're going to have to get you
moving," said Tom, "and one good place to start under
the big tents is at the Million Dollar
Round Table."
"I've no idea what you're talking about,"
I told him.
"It's an annual convention of high-powered,
international business executives. They're always
on the hunt for new and effective
speakers."
"Are you talking about me, Tom?"
"Is there anyone else on this line? Joan,
you've got to learn to lift your eyes to the far
horizons."
"But my eyes don't work, Tom. Did I
forget to tell you?"
"I'm speaking about the vision of your potential
and creative ambition and your guts," said Tom.
This time he wasn't laughing.
I'm tempted to speak here at greater length about
this memorable phone conversation, which left me with a
pounding heart. But we'll be meeting Tom again before
my story is finished.
Before I did this backpedaling to bring in my link
to Tom Sullivan, I referred to two of my
speeches that had a far-reaching impact on my
life. The first of these was to a Bakersfield
Rotary Club luncheon meeting. Much as an
actor becomes aware of and responds
to positive feedback in a theater, so I could now
gauge an audience's positive response,
even when, as so often happened at luncheon
get-togethers, waiters or waitresses were still
busying themselves with dessert plates or coffee
cups.
I still don't know what it is that triggers
total attention or gives an almost electric
charge to ambience, but I did know on this occasion that
the Rotarians were listening--I mean, really
listening. Some of the members knew my parents and
my brother's family. More than one had been in
school with me, and perhaps they were amazed that I could
get up on my hind legs in front of a large
group and say something of interest.
A few days after the Rotary luncheon, I
received a call from one of the club's members,
Mr. Richard Sullenger, who, after introducing
himself, said he had been out of town and had missed
my speech.
"But I'm told," he continued, "that I
missed the best speech the club's had in a very
long while."
"Oh," I responded with genuine surprise.
"Why, thank you, and how nice of you to phone me."
Then Mr. Sullenger astonished me by asking
if I'd ever heard of the Million Dollar
Round Table. He must have marked my intake of
breath, because he added, "Sounds as if you know about
it."
I then told him about my recent conversation with
Tom Sullivan, whom Mr. Sullenger had
heard speak on two occasions. He raved about
Tom.
Mr. Sullenger went on, "It happens that
I'm not only a member of the Million Dollar
Round Table, but I'm also on the committee of ten
that picks the speakers for the annual conventions.
Now, Joan, I have two questions for you, and if you
give a yes to each of them I'd like to try to get
you on the platform for the 1993 Million Dollar
Round Table in Boston. First, have you got an
audio or, preferably, a videotape of one
of your lectures? And second, do you think you could
muster the courage to speak to an audience of five
thousand?"
After a deep swallow, I replied as
nonchalantly as though such questions were tossed at me
every day, "Yes and yes."
The summer of '93 was still a long way ahead,
so after returning the phone to its cradle, I
told myself in words close to those used by Scarlett
O'Hara, "Fiddle-dee-dee, I'll think about
that in about eighteen months."
Then I returned to my talking computer and
continued to work on a forty-minute speech I'd
been asked to give to a Bakersfield high
school on the Thursday before the Christmas break.
This task was good for me, if only because it helped
to keep the size of my hat unchanged!
When that date came around, I found myself in a
gymnasium setting. The kids had listened
attentively and had applauded warmly. It was
now question time. A girl's voice came down to me
from halfway up the bleachers.
"Mrs. Beringer, it's still very hard to even
imagine what it's like to be blind. I think I'd just
want to die if I lost my sight. I'm
wondering, though, what you miss the most."
My first thought was to feel sorry and guilty that
I'd left the girl--and perhaps others in the
audience--feeling depressed. Certainly I had
spoken about the sadder times of my life. In so
doing I'd been aware of the collective sorrow,
even discomfort. But before concluding this talk I'd
gotten the youthful audience to laugh. They'd
particularly enjoyed the story of how Joy had
once found me engaged in a monologue with a
store mannequin.
It was never my intention to "play the
audience." I'd been taken aback at one
service club where the emcee had boomed
heartily, "Joan, you sure know how to press the
right buttons."
To me, a "button-presser" sounded as
slickly professional as a stand-up comedian. The
last reaction I ever sought was an audience of any
makeup leaving a hall, a gymnasium, or
luncheon tables with tightened jaws or dabbing their
eyes.
However, the girl's question caught me off guard.
Curiously, I'd never before been asked what she
now wanted to know.
"What do I miss most?" I repeated the
query, playing for a few seconds of time. My
mind scanned for a credible answer.
"Obviously there are a number of things I
miss very much," I said blithely. "I miss
seeing my daughter's face as she begins--as many
of you in this room now begin--to grow from childhood
to young womanhood. Yes, I do miss seeing
blue skies and the fresh green of springtime. Oh,
gosh! I do miss driving a car and the independence
that driving a car would allow me. I miss--oh,
I suppose my list is a long one, and I
guess the school bell is about to ring for your next
classes. But if you speak to me of sunsets,
or calico cats, or baseball homers my
imagination shifts into high gear.
"Every day I thank God for memory and for the
gift of imagination. I believe that sometimes the
pictures I see in my mind's eye are
likely to be more vivid than yours, more beautiful,
funnier perhaps, or sadder. I believe that--"
My long response to a simple question was
drowned by the shrill sound of the school bell. The
high school students stirred.
The school's principal approached and took
the microphone from my hand. Above a continuing
clatter from the bleachers he said some kind words that
evoked more polite applause. The principal
managed to squeeze in a couple of announcements
--something about a changed time slot for the school band
practice, and how an English teacher wanted her
tenth grade class to go straight to the library
...
While I waited for a guiding arm, that final
question from the bleachers began to haunt me. It stayed
with me all through the lunch with the faculty. It
continued to prod and jab during the long
drive home chauffeured by a chattering member of the
PTA. It still floated around when an effervescent
(usually effervescent) Joy returned home from
her own school. The question returned to haunt me
when I went to bed. It held sleep at bay
until the small hours.
What did I really miss most? All along
I had known the answer but had avoided phrasing
it.
I missed a man. I missed a lover's
fingers stroking my hair. I missed a male
shoulder upon which to rest my head. I missed
whispers in the dark, dialogue at the breakfast
table. I missed a male voice telling me that
I looked pretty, or promising to fix the
vacuum cleaner when he returned from the office.
I missed cooking him a T-bone steak, knowing
he liked it medium-rare. I missed dancing with
him cheek to cheek at a local nightspot or,
less elegantly, on the living room carpet.
I missed guileless male laughter when I
made a fool of myself.
It was not, of course, the first time I had thought
about how nice it would be to get married again--little
heart stabs felt most often when I was with friends
who were happily married. But I'd not permitted
myself to brood or pine on these occasions.
However, the girl who had asked the question from the
gymnasium bleachers had put a match to a
fuse, and the fuse was hissing away in my head.
I was nervous about it, because I knew it could lead
to a barrel of explosive self-pity.
The small hours of the morning (i'd heard the
chimes of the mantelpiece clock in the living
room sound off the hours) are not the easiest of
times to curb covetousness and deep yearnings.
As I now recall that wakeful night I
feel my cheeks flaming from embarrassment over
confessing that a reasonably well-educated woman
who was in her thirties could conceive of herself as being the
heroine of a Gothic novel. This was more or less
the direction that my thoughts had taken me. Before I
took myself in hand, all that my imagination needed was
a very small nudge to create a lurid,
paperback cover--to see myself with a ripped white
blouse, an Adonis pulling me to his saddle
and, for good measure, a blazing mansion in the
distance!
Later--and in this instance much later--it is easy
to laugh at this fantasy and folly. But
there it was, all the same, this fresh interest in
finding a mate and in creating a two-parent
family once again.
When I thumped my pillows for the fourteenth
time, there was no recognizable man upon the stage of
my mind. Would I have slept at all that night
had I known that he was standing in the wings?


The Butterfly Man

There are quite a few unwritten rules for those
who have lost their sight. One of them is that, when
taking a shower, you don't drop the soap. Among
the blind students at the Bakersfield college
is one who claims to be applying for an entry in
The Guinness Book of Records because he
spent seven and a half minutes groveling on the
white tiles of his bathroom looking for the soap that
had slipped through his hands!
On a morning between Christmas and New
Year's I broke the soap-dropping rule. I
was on my knees in the shower, and thus a fig leaf
more naked than Eve, when the bedroom telephone
rang imperiously. Realizing now that the answering
machine wasn't on, I uttered a naughty word.
Then, after dripping water across the bedroom
carpet, I picked up the phone.
"Yup?" I said, still seething.
An unfamiliar male voice responded,
"Sorry--must be the wrong number."
"Who do you want?" I demanded.
"Joan Beringer," said the voice.
"You've got her," I said, "but if you're
selling ..."
"Sure doesn't sound like you," said the voice.
"Caught me in a bad moment," I
apologized. "You see, I lost the soap in the
shower."
"You what?"
My frustration had cooled. "It's just that,
well, forget it. Who's speaking?"
It was Scott Clare. He'd been in high
school with me. He was now a teacher himself and only
a few weeks earlier had invited me to speak to the
kids at his school. He was phoning, he said,
to invite me to his fortieth birthday party.
"Imagine it, Joan, I'm cresting the hill
in a couple of days. I need you at the wake."
"The wake?"
"I'm halfway to eighty!" he moaned.
"It's okay. You don't have to wear black."
Scott, who'd been named the funniest guy in
our graduating class, clarified the invitation.
His wife, Diane, was giving him a surprise
party. He'd been instructed to invite his friends and
then told to forget whom he'd invited.
I was trying to keep up with Scott's
convoluted thought process and, at the same time,
trying to dry myself off with a T-shirt I'd
previously draped across the bed.
He continued, "There'll be a few people you'll
know, but, obedient to Diane's instructions,
I've already forgotten their names."
"Scott, is your domestic life always so
complicated?" Both of us chuckled. "Anyway,
I do have one problem. Isn't your place about
five miles from here, on the other side of town?"
"Give or take a few hundred yards,"
he said.
"Well, for some reason, the DMV won't
give me a driving license."
A guffaw from Scott. Then, "Problem
solved," he said. "I'll pick you up myself.
In any event, Diane wants me out of the house
to give her time to blow up balloons and put little
sausages on toothpicks, that sort of thing.
I'll be at your place at six. Real
informal. Okay?"
"Okay," I said enthusiastically.
I was now enjoying parties. There had been two
or three occasions when I'd been caught among
strangers who were obviously uncomfortable with a blind
person. Those of us who've lost our sight have been
so stereotyped that it is assumed by some that we are
half-witted or that we carry some deadly bug.
Joy gave me every encouragement to get out and about
because she enjoyed her sitters and could watch her
favorite TV programs without protests from
her mother. For formal occasions Joy liked to have some
say in what would be suitable to wear. "No, not that
yellow dress, Mom. It needs a safety pin
to keep your bra strap from showing ..."
For Scott's party I chose a pair of
jeans and a peasant blouse. Joy approved, but
reached for the Q-tips. "Too much mascara,
Mom," she said, "and you've got some lipstick
on your teeth." This from an eleven-year-old!
The sitter arrived on time and was warmly
greeted. Annie was asked by Joy
whether she thought my earrings were too small.
Annie tactfully hemmed and hawed.
"No, Mom," said Joy firmly, "not those with
that blouse. You should be wearing gypsy earrings."
I humored my daughter. I usually did.
She selected gypsy earrings and danced with me
around the carpet. The three of us were laughing when
Scott rang the doorbell. He said he could
hear the sounds of ribald laughter halfway down
our street.
He added mournfully, "I'd hoped for
condolences on this milestone occasion."
"Are you fifty or sixty today?" asked a
laughing Joy.
Scott drawled, "How can such a beautiful
woman produce a daughter who teases me like
that?"
"Yes, Mom is beautiful, isn't she?"
said Joy. "And I'm so glad that I look like
her."
I turned away. Oh, Joy! Oh, my
Joy! I thought. How dark and empty my life
would be without you.
In danger of smudging mascara, I mumbled
some excuse and went to the bedroom. There I
pressed my palms into the edge of the dresser
until I felt in charge of my emotions again.
Then I firmly resolved that were I ever to marry
again, the man would have to love my daughter at least
half as much as I loved her right now.
When we arrived at Scott's home he was
blasted with greetings and applause. Although he'd
invited half the guests himself, he pretended to be
taken by surprise. Diane, who had quickly
noted my immediate confusion (the glare of lights
eliminated even peripheral vision), came across
to me and suggested I might be more comfortable in the
less crowded den. From the doorway she
introduced me to about eight guests whose names, with a
couple of exceptions, meant nothing to me. Then
she spoke the name of Jim Brock!
Jim Brock! I spun back in memory
to my high school days. I could see a shy,
boyish face. I'd had such a crush on him.
His father had owned and had recently sold one of the
biggest department stores in the city.
I must have made some sound, because Diane paused
in her introductions and said, "Oh, so you do
remember Jim?" Her question was answered by Jim
himself.
"I'd be more than a little put out if she
didn't," he said. Then obviously speaking to the
whole company, he added, "Know where and when I
last saw Joan?"
"You're about to tell us," said Diane.
"She was dancing on a table at the senior
wingding--the senior all-night party after our
graduation."
"Nonsense, Jim," I shouted. "I never."
"Did you ever!" he responded.
"And you, James Brock, walked away when
I was going to have you sign my yearbook."
"Well, that was a big mistake," he said, laughing.
Everyone in the den was enjoying this exchange.
The next moment Jim was beside me. Scott,
who'd been Jim's college roommate, must have
told him about my loss of sight, because he
maneuvered me around furniture.
"Come and sit on a cushion by the fire," he
said. "We've a lot of catching up to do."
That was an understatement. We barely moved from the
den's fireplace for the next four hours. Most
of our early dialogue was on the "do you
remember?" plane, and we ran through names of
students who'd been in our class.
For me it was a significant and revealing
interlude when Scott's two very young daughters,
one in pajamas and one in a nightgown, bounded
into the den and made straight for "Uncle Jim."
He tickled them into squeals and giggles and
allowed them to bounce on his stomach. They
obviously adored him.
After Diane had pulled them away and packed
them off to bed, Jim said, "I'm not their uncle,
of course, but I'm never happier than when
playing the role. I just love kids."
What also impressed me was the quiet and
natural way Jim kept me informed on what was
going on. I learned from him why, for example,
there was an explosion of laughter when Scott
opened a birthday gift of a toilet paper
holder which, when the paper was pulled, played
Scottish bagpipes. He named for me the
guests as they entered the room, and he kept me
supplied with snacks, including cocktail
sausages on toothpicks.
Then Jim and I found ourselves approaching
graver issues. I told him of my sadness on
hearing of the death in an auto accident of
his sister Lori, who, although my senior by three
years, had been my friend.
"It was a long time ago, but I still miss her,"
Jim said. "I always will."
"Lori had just everything going for her," I said
softly. "I remember how she was homecoming
queen, cheerleader, and so wonderfully spirited." I
touched Jim's arm as I added, "I guess there
could have been a more appropriate time than a
birthday party to speak of your sister, but I never
did get the chance to talk to you when she died. I was
in college in South Dakota at the time."
There was a moment and then Jim asked, "Is it
the wrong time, then, to talk about what happened to you?
The amazing thing is, Joan, that you don't look
as if you've had bad things happen to you. Mind my
saying this? Truthfully, I was absolutely
amazed when Diane brought you into this room."
I tried to brush away this unexpected
compliment. "What did you expect--a depressed
widow bumping into the furniture?"
His laugh held no more humor than mine when
he said, "Perhaps someone like that."
For the first time since we'd started to talk (was
it really two hours earlier?) there was a shared
sense of moving from safe shallows into deeper
water. Jim broke the moment by rising to his
feet and taking my wineglass. He murmured
something about recharging at the wet bar. His leaving the
room gave me an excuse to freshen up in the
bathroom. Diane had pointed out its door when
she had led me to the den.
I was in no hurry. I needed the pause,
perhaps to check on or even to rein in feelings that were
stirring in those areas of my mind and heart that had not
been opened for a very long time.
I felt really frustrated that I was unable
to age by twenty years that boyish face in high
school.
On my returning to the fireplace, from which, as
far as I could tell, came the only light in the
den, I held out my hand for the refilled glass.
The low light gave me a little peripheral vision.
Jim said, "I thought you were supposed to be
blind!"
I smiled as I sat on the floor cushion
beside him.
"Of course," I said, "you're wondering how
I navigated? Well, once I've walked
through a room I know what to avoid. How
did I know you were here and offering me a full
glass? With my peripheral vision I saw white
blobs on the floor. I recognized the blobs
as your white tennis shoes, and it was pretty
safe to presume that you'd returned from the bar with
replenished glasses. It was easy, you see."
He clinked his glass to mine and said, "I'm
impressed." He was fun, comfortable. I liked this
man.
"Now what about you?" I asked. "What do you do
and how many wives have you had?"
I could almost hear his grin as he said, "As an
astronaut I'm scheduled for next week's
flight to Mars. I was able to get here tonight only
because there's been a leak in one of the booster
rockets. Wives? Henry the Eighth ain't
got nothing on me."
I dug my elbow into his ribs. "The
truth," I demanded, "or I shall drive myself
home."
Both of us were again enjoying the safe banter.
"I'm a lepidopterist," he said.
"That," I responded, "sounds like a word in a
crossword puzzle or a spelling bee. You're
either an authority on Bohemian art or you
extract perfume from exotic flowers."
Jim slapped a thigh. "You're not all that far
off," he said. "A lepidopterist is a student
of butterflies, and butterflies are drawn
to flowers by their scents and colors."
"So you spend your time catching butterflies!"
I exclaimed. "I'm somehow getting the wrong
picture. The one I'm getting is like a New
Yorker cartoon. There's a guy with knobby
knees waving a little green net on the end of a
stick."
He chuckled. "Well, I don't have knobby
knees and I look for butterflies in places
like Brazilian rain forests and the West Indies.
Also in Arizona, where I live now. Do you
want me to go into details?"
"I'm already fascinated," I told him.
Jim went on to tell me that he had recently
co-authored an authoritative illustrated
book on butterflies at his home in
Tucson.
As he spoke, I was gaining a better
picture of the man. I'd known him to be a wit
and I now knew him to be a scientist; I was also
seeing him as a passionate lover of
nature. He spoke urgently of the need
to preserve nature's threatened treasures.
I was really listening and being much intrigued by his
intensity when he suddenly stopped in mid-sentence.
"Oh, heck!" he exclaimed, "I didn't
mean to have tunnel vision when I got onto
butterflies. I don't want to scare you off."
"Do I look scared?" I asked.
"You look--you look--well, much prettier
than anything I've ever encountered in the forests of
Brazil."
I gave Jim my most dazzling smile and
told him that this was the most original compliment
I'd ever been given. I added, "But I can't
wait to hear about your love life."
"You're going to have to wait," he said, "'cause
we're all but the last people to go home. If we
don't move out now Scott and Diane will boot
us out."
I told him that I couldn't leave until
Scott was ready to take me home. I held
my breath, hoping that this hint was strong enough for Jim
to offer to drive me home himself. We'd walked out
of the den and were now near the front door. When
Jim didn't respond to the hint, I was
tempted to ask him plainly if he would drive
me home.
My timidity prevailed. The opportunity
was quite lost when Diane embraced me and Scott
led me to his car. There was not even an
opportunity to say goodnight to my stimulating
companion of the evening.
On the five-mile drive home I casually
asked Scott if his longtime friend had ever been
married.
"Surprisingly not," said Scott. "Of
course, now that Jim lives in Arizona--that's
where he got his degree in biology--I don't
see much of him. Before he graduated he worked for
his father in the department store for three or four
years. I wasn't married then and we had some
great times together. He was never short of a date.
One of his girls--forget her name--went on to do quite
well in Hollywood. No, I think Jim's
been totally wrapped up in his specialty. He
must have told you about the butterflies. Gather
he's quite a significant name in
lepidopterology. He's done what so many
wished they had done. He's followed his dream.
He's a nice guy."
"Yes," I agreed, "he's a very nice
guy." I was glad Scott had no reason
to feel my pulse.
When Louise and Sandy dropped in for coffee the
next morning they quickly picked up on my
enthusiasm.
"Not Jim Brock!" exclaimed Louise.
"When I was in junior college he was just about the
number one catch."
"Right," joined in Sandy. "Most everyone bought
their clothes at Brock's. Believe his folks
also have a beautiful place on the beach somewhere."
I told Louise and Sandy as much as I'd
learned about Jim, but bewailed my low expectation
of ever being likely to see him again.
Both took me to task, Sandy saying,
"Joan, haven't you heard? This is the
nineties! We gals are allowed to phone up the
guys and ask for dates."
"Oh, I just couldn't do it," I told them.
Then an inspired thought hit me. I could ask
Jim about publishing a book. That, after all, was
what I was hoping to do myself sometime. I shared this
notion with my friends and explained how Jim had
authored and published an important volume.
Over our coffee mugs the strategy was laid
out. I managed to find the Brocks' unlisted
number through phoning Scott. Jim was not at
home when I called, but his father was, and he
promised to deliver my message and my phone
number to his son.
Thus it was on the last day of 1991 that Jim
Brock took me to lunch at a Bakersfield
restaurant called the Olive Garden. Later
I was to reflect that the very first love story also
began in a garden.


From the Desert with Love

This is a letter I audiotaped to Cathy on
January 18, 1992:

... There's a man in my life!! Oh
Cathy, my dear, I can hear your cry of alarm.
Is it for real? I don't know. I mean, I
wake up with my heart singing and I go to bed with
mosquitoes of doubt buzzing and stinging my mind.
I tell myself that it can't be, that it couldn't be.
This happiness I've dreamed about, this
gift I've prayed for, is surely not for me.
What I'm attempting to tell you, Cathy,
is that I'm trying to be cautious. I tell
myself, Joan, just you remember who you are! You
can't even see his face. You can't run into his
arms without tripping over the doormat. You can't
... you can't ... you can't!
But I did see his face--twenty years
ago. We were in high school together, same
class. I can still see the boy smile but not the
man. Yet I hear his words and I feel his
touch.
But I can tell you the split second when the
beautiful thing happened, the moment when we put
music to our words. We were having lunch at this
restaurant which was almost deserted because I guess
everyone was preparing to see in the New Year.
So we had the place to ourselves, and we sat in a
booth. I should have told you that we'd met two
nights earlier at the birthday party of a mutual
friend. There, at the friend's home, we talked for about
four hours, tapping into each other's life
experiences, discovering each other's laughter
buttons. There were some sad reflections, too.
But I liked him almost at once. In fact, I
liked him very much.
His name's Jim (yes, another J in my
life!). Then, the morning after the party, Louise
and Sandy worked out an excuse for Jim to invite
me to lunch (what a web we women can weave!).
He's a scientist--actually an authority
on butterflies. He calls himself a
lepidopterist. Glad I'm taping and not writing
this letter to you 'cause I'm not sure of the spelling.
Look it up in your Webster's.
Where was I? Ah, yes, in a booth of this almost
empty restaurant toying with wineglasses (we
had both ordered and eaten quiche--one of the easier
dishes for me to handle), when suddenly--yes, this
is when it happened--his hand came across the table
and rested on mine.
Fireworks? No! Electric storm? No.
Did the aspen leaves tremble? No! But something
I don't know how to describe passed from his hand
to mine. He'd touched me before, of course. He'd
led me from my front door to his car, for
example. He had guided me to our table. Our
hands had touched when he'd passed me the pepper
and the bread rolls. But this on-the-table touch was
different.
Actually, after his hand had been resting on mine
for some seconds he asked, "Is it okay for me
to do this?"
I nodded, and my smile widened. I know
you'll understand, Cathy, when I tell you that it was not
only a physical but--well--a sort of
spiritual connection. It was as if it was planned by You
Know Who.
We're not teenagers. That meeting of the
sensitive skins of our fingers was far, far
removed from two kids holding sticky hands in the
back seats of a movie theater, or the first
kisses in Dad's Buick. Back then (as you,
too, will remember) it was all breathless, and a bit
scary.
At this restaurant I knew what was going through
my mind, but I could only guess at what was
going through his. What we said to each other was not so
important. We did discuss his authorship of a
book, and I told him of my literary
ambitions. We got into philosophical areas
after I'd asked him how he had developed his
interest in butterflies. He was ballistically
enthusiastic when he spoke about his awe on first
watching at the age of seven a butterfly emerge
from a chrysalis.
I murmured the first lines of that hymn we all
sang in Sunday school:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small ...

To my surprise and delight, Jim recited
the last lines!

All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

"So you believe in God?" I asked him.
He replied, "Not many realize that Charles
Darwin held a very strong belief in God. So
did Einstein, for that matter. Anyone who has
looked through a microscope at the wings of a
butterfly or who has seen, as I have, a
butterfly with a two-inch, azure-blue wingspan
settle on the petal of an orchid in the
Brazilian rain forests does not have to be
persuaded that God exists, and that His creative and
unparalleled artistry is evident everywhere."
He made the phrases sound much lighter
than they do when I try to recall them.
We finger-tipped the rim of our beliefs because
our dialogue was more of a reconnaissance of each
other's likes, dislikes, hopes, and creeds
than a full exploration.
Heck, Cathy, what I'm trying to tell
you--because I know you'll be happy for me but
anxious, too--is that both Jim and I understand that
not only is something wonderful happening to us, but that
both of us must weigh the obvious problems and
difficulties.
We're told that love is blind, but when one of the
lovers is actually without sight, the warnings to go
carefully are, or should be, red-lettered.
For me, the strongest of these warnings is whether
Jim really understands what he might be getting
into. There'll soon be an opportunity for us
to talk at a deeper level because--guess what?
--he's given me a very unusual birthday
present, a round-trip plane ticket
to Tucson, Arizona, where he's lived for the past
fifteen years. Southern Arizona happens to be
just about the best area in the country for the study of
butterflies. This may be irrelevant trivia
to you, but it's no longer trivia to me!
Since that luncheon on New Year's Eve,
and his return to his Tucson home, we've
talked for about a hundred hours on the phone. I
hope you've got some stock in ATANDThat (or is
it Sprint?) because the dividends should be soaring! You
might also invest in Interflora, because long-stemmed
roses are arriving by the dozens!
Jim's just been to Jamaica (on butterfly
business), and I've just returned from a two-day
visit to Sacramento (medical checkup and a
talk to a women's conference put on by Clemson
University). The phone calls were uninterrupted
and the local florist shop is still delivering.
Cathy, do you smell smoke? If so, it's
because my birthday present from Jim--the plane ticket to Tucson--is probably scorching the
envelope in the second drawer down on the right
side of my dresser!
Now, what are you thinking? What I believe
I could hear you saying--or what I would like to hear
you saying--is that if Jim really cares for me he
will protect me better than he would guard the
rarest of his butterflies.
Sounds like a quote from an Elizabeth
Barrett Browning poem to her beloved
Robert. Remember it? "How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways ..." We had to learn it
by heart when I was in tenth grade.
Jim hasn't actually said that he loves me.
These words need the right setting, don't they? What
he did say in an earlier phone call was,
"Joan, we need time alone with each other. You
need to know who I am." I was really deeply
touched that he was thinking of me and my concerns in this
way. He knows there are big questions on my mind,
not the least of them being Joy's well-being.
He and Joy took to each other from the moment they
first met. After her second meeting with Jim she
said, "Mom, he's real neat and he makes me
laugh." I don't need to tell you that "neat" is
currently the ultimate tribute of a
ten-year-old. My parents also gave Jim their
immediate approval. "Very interesting and courteous young
man," huffed Dad. "Too few like 'em around
these days." If Dad hadn't guessed I was in
love, Mom surely did. I'm sure she was
winking when she said, "I like him very much."
Cathy, please forgive me, as I know you will,
for a taped letter that's all about the very special him.
Greet the other girls for me and, of course,
Dennis.
Much love from my song-filled heart,
Joan

Three days after mailing this tape, I received a
cryptic telegram that read: CHECKED
LEPIDOPTERIST. VINTON FRIENDS FEEL
YOUR HEART IS GIVING GOOD
SIGNALS. NEED PROGRESS REPORTS.
LOVE CATHY ET ALSO.
Cathy's telegram made me glow because I
knew her to be blessed with good intuition.
At the end of January, my heart was still
song-filled, but there was a timorous quaver to the
top notes as the airplane nosed down to the
runway in Tucson. Although Arizona bordered
California, surprisingly I had never visited
the state. A sad thought flashed through my mind--
I'd never actually see the famous saguaros, the
multilimbed cactuses made known to the world through
Western movies, and which stand like sentinels across the
desert landscape.
Earlier in the flight I had asked a
stewardess to check my makeup. She told me
what I'd been told before--that I
barely needed any and that I looked just fine.
"Meeting someone important?" she asked, and
I knew her eyebrows were near her hairline.
I nodded.
"Then I'll be meeting him, too," she said,
"because I'll be taking you off the plane." She
laughed. "But you needn't worry. I'm no
competition." Another laugh. "But who would be?"
(parenthetically, here, I want to say that in all
my traveling--and I've traveled continents
since setting out to write this story--every flight
attendant has treated me like a favorite
sister.)
The real reason I was edgy was not that I'd
overdone the eye shadow, but that I'd be meeting
Jim on his home ground.
Oh, we'd spoken half a million words
on the phone, but we'd not seen each other in
several long weeks. He'd surely find out now
how much I'd depend on him, not only to guide
my steps, but for descriptions of everything that was
going on around me.
In our last phone conversation he'd mentioned that
he'd gotten tickets for a basketball game.
I'd enjoyed playing basketball myself at
college, and I knew the rules and skills.
But if I were to become involved in the game he'd
have to be a radio commentator. Would he weary of this
and other tasks?
The wheels of the plane touched the runway,
lifted for a couple of seconds, then touched again.
The intercom speaker above my head welcomed us
to Tucson and warned passengers not to move until
the airplane had come to a complete standstill.
Inside my head a voice was saying, "You're
crazy, Joan. You're trying to live out a
dream. Wake up. What are you really doing
here?" My pulse was hitting the high numbers.
I wondered if the passenger next to me could hear
it.
The airplane came to a halt at the
terminal. The stewardess came to me. She reached
up to pull my carry-on bag from the overhead
locker. She said brightly, "Well, here we are.
Give me your hand. I'll take you off ahead
of the other passengers. Excited?"
A minute later I heard a familiar and
loved voice. It said, "You look beautiful,
Joan. I'm so happy you're here." His arms were
around me. His lips touched mine. I
heard him thank the stewardess. Then he pressed
a rose into my hands. It was sealed into a thin vial
of water.
He said, "I felt pretty goofy holding this
flower, but since you grasped it, the petals have
started to open up." He laughed. I loved his
laugh; all my earlier nervous feelings lifted
like a sea mist touched by the sun.
The other passengers were now coming off the
airplane. I could hear them moving around me.
They may have wondered what was going on as they saw
a woman with a cane holding the elbow of a man
who, so he told me, was "one big grin."
As I allow my mind to savor again the
memories of my first visit to Tucson,
Arizona, I'm getting goose bumps. I'm
like a kid on her first trip to the beach--all
delight and bewilderment and fascination.
Yes, we went to the university basketball
game where Jim proved to be an excellent
commentator. Yes, we went to a marvelous
restaurant in the foothills. We drove above
the snowline of Mount Lemmon, where we pelted
each other with snowballs. I have proof of this because
everywhere we went Jim recorded our
activities on his video camera. Obviously
my snowballs went wide of their mark, but every now
and then Jim pretended (i'm sure) that I'd
hit my target. The snowballs that hit me were
powder-puff soft. Our laughter echoed off the
cliffs.
He explained his reason for making the video
movie. "I don't forget," he said, "that I'm
courting two blondes. These pictures are for
Joy."
When later, back in Bakersfield, I ran
the tape through my TV, it wasn't the snowball
fight that gave Joy her biggest laugh. What
sent her into hysterics were shots taken by me. High
up on Mount Lemmon, Jim had put the
video camera into my hands and had instructed me
to pan across the valley far below. Unable to observe
what I was shooting, the camera had tilted right and
left. The outcome, Joy told me, was like
flying in a small plane that was doing
aerobatics!
Joy was quite enchanted by another shot, this of a
butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Jim had
been waiting for the emerging of the butterfly for two
years! He had kept the chrysalis in
his small laboratory.
The close-up tripod shot showed the
butterfly on his hand as it unfolded and dried off
its exquisite wings. I quote from Jim's
running commentary given on the day of my arrival!
"Is the analogy too obvious?" Jim had
asked.
Laughingly I told him that I'd set a
limit on the number of times he could refer to me
as "one of his bugs"! I was discovering, though, that
he was a poet at heart, as I suppose is
everyone who glories in the beauty of nature.
Within a few hours of the hatching of the butterfly,
which was indigenous to southern Arizona, we drove
eight miles into the desert to release it among the
flora upon which it fed. While we traveled he
played on the car's tape recorder the theme song
from that classic movie, Born Free.
In the mid-morning of the third day of my
four-day visit to Arizona, Jim told me
to close my eyes.
"Close my eyes!" I exclaimed,
laughing. "You mock me, sir!"
"I mock thee not," he said. "I've ordered
up the magic carpet. It will take us to a place
of enchantment."
Outside, the air was cool, but the desert sun
was warm upon my face. There was a delicate
aroma of what Jim informed me was a creosote
bush. "Have we already arrived?" I asked as I
spread my arms.
"You haven't even gotten aboard," he
replied before leading me to his four-wheel-drive
truck, which had enormous wheels. He needed this
vehicle for climbing mountains, he had told me
--"and to go today where no man hath gone before," he
added. He played the innocent when I accused him
of pinching that line from Star Trek.
Shortly, we were rumbling along on our way,
and within thirty minutes of our setting out we were
obviously off the beaten track for I was being
tossed about like a cork in a boiling cauldron.
Through chattering teeth I told him that his magic
carpet was badly in need of a lube job.
Eventually he pulled the truck to a stop,
turned off the engine, and leaned across to open the
passenger door. I heard the sound of tumbling
water. As he helped me to the ground he
instructed me to use my imagination.
"It may sound like a waterfall to you,"
he said, "but what you hear are tiny violins being
played by red-capped elves sitting cross-legged
on toadstools. They've been given a
Sunbelt vacation by Santa after their hard work at
Christmas." He left me for a moment as he
pulled some things from the back of the truck. One was
a blanket, the other a picnic basket.
He spread the blanket on what he told
me (and I should have guessed by the fresh and
distinctive smell) was a carpet of pine
needles. He ordered me to lie down and test it
for comfort.
"Not exactly an innerspring," I told him,
"and there's a little lumpy thing in the small of my
back."
When he had removed what he told me was a
small pine cone, he suggested that in some
previous incarnation I had probably been that
princess who had complained about a pea under
ninety-nine mattresses.
We enjoyed a long moment, stretching our
limbs, breathing deeply of the purest air, now
pine scented. I was aware, too, of a breeze
moving the leaves of other trees and shrubs on the
mountain slope.
"Yes," he said eventually, "this is why I
love this country. I've come here often simply
to enjoy a sense of freedom and space. You could
believe that concrete and crowds and man's
despoiling of the good earth are on another planet.
Here you can whisper, or shout for joy or speak of
gracious things. Do you wonder that this is where I
seek butterflies?"
He stirred. The pine needles under his prone
body whispered. Then, because of the sudden loss of
sunlight, I was aware of the shadow of his head above
me. I didn't move. There hadn't been a
moment since I'd lost my sight that I had more
desired to see. His fingers combed my hair and he
kissed me very tenderly.
I had guessed that this time would come. I had
played it out in my mind--not quite like this, not in this
magical place. I had known that I would have
to freeze the frame, to stop the movement of the scene
until I'd spoken lines that might risk my
losing Jim.
I pressed my hands into his shoulders, and as
soon as my lips were freed I said quietly,
"Jim, I must talk. I need to talk about things
that I don't want to tell you."
He pulled away from me, arching his back.
"Then don't tell me," he said. "Just listen
to the elves on their violins. Are they playing
allegro, animato, or dolce?"
"I'm not completely with you," I said.
"Just testing your knowledge. A concert pianist friend has
been trying to educate me in classical music.
Allegro means brisk, animato is
lively, and dolce is--oh, you can guess that one
--it means gentle or sweetly. What do you
hear, Joan?"
"Forgot to tell you I had piano lessons,"
I said, "but the music I hear now is in the words
of a man I've grown to love."
He drew in a deep breath. "And I'm
looking down on the loveliest face I've ever
seen. I love that face. I love the one whose
face it is."
He bent his head to kiss me again. But once more
I put more pressure on his shoulders. "Oh,
Jim," I murmured, "my heart aches for you, my mind, my spirit too. But I have to talk to you about
something that's really important."
He picked up the gravity of my voice.
There was a long moment before he rolled away from me
and lay on his back.
This small separation hurt. I couldn't be
sure that he was still looking at me. The glare of the
sky obliterated all peripheral vision.
Almost choking, I said, "There can be nothing more
wonderful than to love and be loved. But I'm
afraid, Jim, so afraid ..."
"Of me?"
"No, no, not of you. Not of a man who takes
a butterfly eight miles for its supper."
"Then?"
I was silent, but trying hard to force words from a
throat that wouldn't immediately release them.
Jim said gently, "Would it help if I
held your hand?"
"Yes, it would help," I managed to say.
His hand held mine and his fingers were busy in my
palm. Strength that had ebbed seemed to flow back
to me. I found that I was able to speak calmly,
logically.
"We're not really children at play," I said.
"We're both grown-ups, Jim, and we must
think and act like adults. Not far from this peaceful,
beautiful place there are supermarkets where, I
suspect, you bought the cold cuts or
whatever, the bread and the coffee that you have in the
picnic basket. Have you thought that when I go to a
grocery store I am unable to select from a
shelf one can of soup or one bottle of soy
sauce? There are cars out there on the highways and
freeways--millions of them. Have you thought that I
cannot drive even one of them? There are schools and
dentists' offices. Have you thought that I cannot take
my daughter to school and I cannot take her to a
park? When I'm in a home and someone leaves a
closet door open I can hurt myself. I live
in a world of glare or twilight. I've lived in
this world for eight years. Whatever more years are
given to me are going to be lived out in this shadowed
world. Have you really thought about this, Jim? Believe
me, I'm not being self-pitying. I've accepted
this unseeing world of mine. I'm no heroine but
I've not been unhappy in it."
Jim made no attempt to interrupt me, and
I was grateful that he didn't. I was
grateful, too, for the touch of his fingers on my
palm.
I surprised myself by the steadiness of my
voice. I could have been speaking about the weather or
a bus timetable. Yet I was aware that what I was
saying could end a glorious love affair.
After taking some moments to regather thoughts I
continued, "You asked me, Jim, what I'm
afraid of. By now, you surely know what it is but
I'll spell it out for you. I'm afraid that you will
tire of me--perhaps not of me, but of what living with
me would be like--not now, not for a few days, not for a
few months, but in a year, five years, ten
years. Yes, this thought makes me afraid for you,
afraid for myself."
My voice trailed into silence. The only
sound now came from the waterfall close by. I
could no longer picture Jim's elves sitting
cross-legged on toadstools. I tried
to create an image of his expression. were the
lips that had kissed me so tenderly a few
minutes earlier now grimly tightened? Was his
jaw working?
Suddenly he drew his hand away from mine. The
pine needles under the blanket rustled again. I
knew he was now sitting up.
My heart turned over.
The sky's glare was shadowed over once again, and
I was aware that he was looking down at me. Was
he adding up the cost of my speaking the
truths he needed to hear?
A moment--a long moment during which my thoughts
moved from agony to sublime elation--for his lips were
upon mine once more.
After the long kiss I whispered, "Oh,
Jim, I thought I'd lost you. I thought ..."
"Joan, you still don't know who I am," he
said. His voice was light, touched by laughter. "Do
you believe that I haven't given a lot of thought
to what you've spoken about? Don't you understand my
love for you?"
Then, "I don't claim all the virtues,
Joan, but a man who chases butterflies has
to have lots and lots of patience. You spoke about the
years ahead. Didn't I tell you that the
butterfly which emerged from its chrysalis yesterday
had kept me waiting for two years? When I'm
searching for a particular caterpillar or chrysalis
I spend hours, days, sometimes even a week on
my knees searching through clumps of grass. When
I'm in the rain forests of Brazil I can spend
a month looking for a metal mark butterfly, a
critter smaller than a dime that helps
to maintain the balance of nature, an incredible
living thing that perhaps only one person in a hundred
would notice, even if it was in front of their
nose."
He kissed me again before he continued. "I've
been waiting years for a wife. I've been
lonely for far too long. Every Christmas my mother
has asked me what I want for a gift. Every
year for the past decade I've told her I
want a wife. It's a family joke. Do you
know what she gave me this Christmas? A
sheepskin coat. Nice--but not a wife.
Patience! Gosh, Joan, do I have patience!
Then I met beautiful you!"
I was listening to a naturalist's soliloquy.
In the event that I might interrupt him, I bit
my lip. He, too, took pause for breath,
then continued. "Now I can tell you what happened
after we had our lunch on New Year's Eve.
I went back to my mother and I told her that I'd
found her--found the woman I want to marry. I
didn't tell her more than that. I didn't even
tell her your name, because I wasn't sure that the
woman I'd found would want me--yes, me,
Jim Brock, a forty-year-old bachelor who
seeks rare butterflies! But on the off chance that
she might agree to marry me I asked
my mother for advice on buying an engagement ring.
Mother went to her bedroom wall safe and came
back not with a ring, but this."
Jim now uncurled the fingers of my left hand
and placed within my palm what felt like a hard,
thin, little stick. He closed my fingers around it.
Up to this point I'd been speechless, but now
I asked, "What is it, Jim? What is this?"
"Hold on to it tightly," he instructed.
"It's probably just as hard to find a diamond
stickpin among pine needles as it is to find a
needle in a haystack."
"It isn't really a diamond?" I
exclaimed.
As I tightened my grip he hooted with
laughter and said, "I guess this proposal is a
first of its kind. You're holding my great aunt
Sadie's diamond stickpin. I gather she
wore it on her shoulder when she entertained
President Theodore Roosevelt--someone like
that. I'll re-check the family archives."
"Oh, Jim," I cried, "I'm trying
to keep up with you. You have to be kidding!"
"No, it's true, more or less," he said.
"The pin is eighty years old, and the diamond was
created when God said, "Let there be light."
Oh, and by the way, I'm asking you to marry me.
If your answer is yes, we'll find a
jeweler, to put Aunt Sadie's diamond
into an engagement ring."
"Oh, Jim! Jim!"
"That's okay," he said, laughing. "You don't
have to hurry with your answer. You can think about it over
a lunch of chicken breasts and potato salad.
I brought half a dozen napkins, too. You can
use one of them to wipe away a smear on your
left cheek. I think it's a mix of sand, wild
grass seeds, and a saline solution."
While we ate lunch I told him I could
indeed now hear his cross-legged elves playing
their violins.
"Allegro, animato, or dolce?" he
asked.
"All three," I replied, laughing. "And
what perfect harmony!"


Twilight also Heralds Dawn

An audiotaped letter to Cathy, dated August
7, 1992:

... Oh, my dear Cathy, how to begin to tell
you what's happened since I was last in touch?
Where to find the words to describe my elation?
Willy Shakespeare, where are you when I need
you!
I've not even had the chance to talk to you about the
wedding. Jim and I were married on June 27 in
the small Bakersfield church where I was
baptized and confirmed. There, at Sunday school
and through my teenage years, I sang a thousand
hymns, prayed ten thousand prayers.
Dad married us. Louise, the closest friend of
my childhood--and indeed, of all my years--
was my maid of honor. The Joy of my own
bones and my flesh was the only bridesmaid.
The congregation was small because we'd invited
only Jim's family and my own to witness the
plighting of our troth.
Don't you love the word "troth"? It seems
to embrace fidelity, care, and foreverness, and it
comes, I'm sure, from the Middle Ages.
What did I wear? I'll not waste time
describing the dresses because I'll be sending
pictures taken by brothers Bob, who came from
Virginia, and Jon. We've got the whole thing
on videotape, too.
I had so many memorable moments. The first was coming
down the aisle on Dad's arm. Dad's so
frail these days. He's undergone major surgery
on a heart that's spent nearly half a century
giving its best to the spiritual and emotional needs of
others.
While he was giving us his message, he choked
up several times. Our wedding, I'm thinking, may
be the last church rite that Dad is likely
to perform. I kind of sense this, and I think he
did too, as he asked his only daughter and the
man at her side "to have and to hold from this day
forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for
poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us
do part."
I was in a sort of daze of delight and my
emotional Basque maid of honor wept through the
exchange of vows. Afterward Dad
laughingly reminded Louise that she was at a
wedding, not a funeral!
Dad began by greeting us with the words, "Who can
deny the Providence of God in bringing the two of
you together?"
Not me, Cathy! I can remember Dad
saying, "You, Joan, and you, James (he's
always formal at baptisms, weddings, and
funerals), will be walking the remainder of your
journey in companionship, bearing each other's
burdens, comforting one another, forsaking all
others."
For me the most poignant moment was when Dad
said, "Joan, you've had your share of pain, but
never forget the words from the catechism that "without the
will of My Father in Heaven, not a hair shall fall from
my head."" His voice cracked for a moment before
he added, "Hold fast to this, my beloved daughter
Joan."
Last week when we ran through the video I
couldn't help but think that every couple planning
divorce should be obliged to sit down together and
play back their wedding, listening again to the solemn
and wonderful words they said to each other in front of
minister, priest, or rabbi. Of course, the
divorce lawyers would lobby like mad against such a
law, but I'd bet that many marriages would be
pulled back from the brink.
I'm meandering, as I usually do when I've
got forty-five minutes of audiotape to play
with. Now where was I? I'd left Jim at the
altar (ha! ha!). No, Jim and I had said
our I do's and he had kissed me (a long and
lovely kiss), and I'm now wearing his gold ring
alongside Great Aunt Sadie's diamond.
The diamond is not as big as the one Richard
Burton gave Elizabeth Taylor, but it's
created a lot of oohs and aahs from girlfriends.
When Louise had stopped crying I was able
to tell her how much her friendship had meant to me.
Since we returned to Bakersfield, Louise
has often been my right arm and my eyes and my
confidante. She's driven Joy and me all the
way to Pismo several times and she would have driven
us to Timbuktu if I'd asked her. She
drove Jim and me down to the Los Angeles
airport where we boarded a plane for Hawaii.
It's the first time I've ever turned left when
boarding a plane. Stewardesses served us lunch
on white linen--champagne, shrimp, and
broiled peacock tongues! (just kidding.)
Thus to our deluxe condo right on a beach in
Maui. How close to paradise! Going to sleep
on the shoulder of a man I love with all my
heart, and to the surging sound of surf less than a
hundred yards from our pillow.
Soon after we got back to Bakersfield we
held our wedding reception. This was for friends and
relatives from all over. We did invite you and
Dennis, as you'll remember, and we were sorry you
couldn't make it. But one very special guest was
Jay, now athletically handsome and in his
mid-teens. We flew him down from Iowa. By the
way, while we were on our honeymoon Joy
flew up to South Dakota to have time with Joe's
folks. So all was, as usual, perfectly
timed.
Then the big move to Tucson. I'd gotten
rid of some of my furniture from the
Bakersfield condo. Even so, Jim's big
truck was loaded to the gunnels (whatever
gunnels are). My precious talking computer and
Visual Tek were padded by cushions. Guess
we looked like one of the Dust Bowl families in
a scene out of Grapes of Wrath.
Cathy, where are you when you actually listen to my
audiotapes? If you're sensible, you're lying in
a hot bath after your kids have gone to bed!
Another little miracle of nature! I
didn't see it myself (naturally), but it sure
excited Jim and Joy. We were on the
outskirts of Tucson when there was a rainstorm.
Although we'd roped a tarp over the furniture and
other things in the back of the truck, I was nervous
about my computer getting wet. So Jim pulled the
truck under a railroad bridge. After the
brief storm was over and as we were emerging from the
bridge Jim and Joy hollered.
"Stop screaming," I shouted. "What's
happening?"
"It's a rainbow!" yelled Joy.
"So what?" I said. "It's not the first rainbow
you've seen."
"But, Mom, it's the brightest rainbow I've
ever seen. It's unreal!"
Then Jim added, "The apex of the rainbow is
right over my house--our new home."
Now I understood the reason for their excitement.
Jim pulled the truck to the side of the road
to watch and describe this brilliant bow
over our new home, all of us awestruck.
That night when Jim and I were in bed he brought
up the subject of the rainbow again. He whispered,
almost shyly, "I'm remembering your first visit
to Tucson, honey, and how that butterfly chose the
time of your arrival to emerge from its chrysalis.
And today we're greeted by the mother and father of all
rainbows! Been thinking of the words your Dad said at
our wedding, that Providence brought us together.
Nature's sure giving us a thumbs up."
This was my husband, the poet, speaking while his
arms were around me. He wasn't laughing, Cathy
--not this time.
What went through my mind was the story of the first
rainbow. I'm pretty sure it's in Genesis,
chapter nine, where God said to Noah that he had
set a rainbow in the sky as a covenant that the
days of tribulation were over. That's the gist of the
story, I think. Look it up sometime.
So here I am, Cathy, lying in Jim's arms
and with my heart overflowing with thankfulness, hope, and
love, and thinking, I'm oh, so blessed. It was one
incredibly beautiful moment.
To Jim I murmured, "So many memories."
My poetical husband replied, "So many
wonderful memories yet to be made."
Now, Cathy, if you are lying in your bath and this
tape has been spinning away, the water's
probably tepid. You can get out of the tub now and
towel yourself dry, because I've updated you on what
my French teacher would have called "les affaires
d'amour"--at least the affairs of Mrs.
James Brock. Please remember my new
name when you next write.
Dear love to you, as always,
Joan

My affairs continued to be fun-filled,
exciting, and unexpectedly dramatic.
The fun-filled facets of my new life were
centered on our family. Jim, the former
forty-year-old bachelor, has become not only
a deeply caring husband but a deeply caring father.
As Joy was making the transition from childhood
to her teenage years she found another father. She
calls him Jim, which was fine with both of us. In
her going to a new school in a new city, it was
Jim who was at her shoulder as often as I. When
it came to the need for help with homework, Jim was
understandably a lot more helpful than I
could be. Joy who, by necessity, had always been
older than her years, is now an honor
student. With the genes of her biological father, she
is a very good athlete.
When Jim was "bug-hunting," as he usually
called his professional work here in Arizona,
we'd often travel as a threesome into the desert.
Sometimes we'd turn these expeditions into a
picnic. I'd be left in some sheltered spot
to guard the provisions while Jim and Joy
clambered over terrain I could not safely
manage. We'd keep in touch through a superior
set of walkie-talkies. They'd tell me where
they were and what success they were having.
On one especially lovely
juniper-tree-scented summer's morning, they'd
left me within earshot of a mountain stream. My
walkie-talkie buzzed me out of a daydream.
Jim told me that he had just netted a
butterfly, one that he had been looking for on the
higher slopes, and that Joy had been the first
to spot the critter.
Five minutes later my walkie-talkie
buzzed again. I wasn't really fooled when a
squeakily disguised voice wailed, "I'm a
pretty blue and gray butterfly. I was
fluttering along up here when a man and a girl
caught me in a net and put me into a glass
jar. Please tell them to let me outta here
'cause my boyfriend is waiting for me." A
giveaway giggle exploded into Joy's laughing
hysterically. For the next few minutes the air
waves on the lower slopes of the Santa
Catalina Mountains crackled with the sounds of
merriment.
An hour later, husband and daughter--both as
hungry and as thirsty as hunters should be--joined
me for lunch. Laughter drowned the sound of running
water and lasted through the family outing.
It was a good day for the captured butterfly,
too. Before we left for home we voted
unanimously in favor of letting it go free.
Joy excitedly told me that it circled us
three times before soaring into the blue.
Putting on her squeaky voice once more,
Joy said, "Thank you very much. I just hope my
boyfriend's still waiting for me. He promised
to take me to a flutterby game tonight, and tomorrow
we're going to look for a nice place to lay my
eggs."
In 1993 there was another major event in my
life. Richard Sullenger, who eighteen months
earlier had first spoken to me about the Million
Dollar Round Table, had kept in close touch.
He had cautioned that the international organization
received annually at least five hundred
applications to speak at each convention--the next
one to be held in Boston. I was still not putting
much store in my chances when he, as chairman of the
selection committee, insisted that I was a "serious
candidate."
The process of being selected to speak at a
convention is precise and traditional. The
filtering out of potential speakers is on a
global scale.
Another selection committee member, Mike
Weintraub, flew to Tucson especially to hear
me speak to (of all groups) a church
congregation. Unbeknown to me, Mr. Weintraub
arrived when I was already into my talk, and in order
to catch his plane back to San Francisco he
was obliged to leave before I had concluded. However,
he left a business card with one of the ushers. On
it he had written, "You're absolutely
terrific!" I was bowled over because my talk had
been tailored to meet the interests of a church
group.
In March I was invited to travel to Chicago
to try out for the Round Table's main platform, for which
only fifteen speakers would be chosen for the
five-day convention in midsummer.
Phone calls were coming in several times a week,
some from people in a professional production company
who helped me refine my talk, which had to be
reduced to twenty minutes.
In the midst of these exciting days, Dad died.
In my last phone conversation with him he said,
"Joan, I am so very proud of you, so very happy
for you."
Dad's death took the gleam and glitter off the
thrill of the upcoming Chicago event. Jim
helped me through my grieving. He reminded me
again and again, lovingly but firmly, that life goes
on.
One afternoon Jim said, "Joan, it's time for you
to stop thinking of yourself. What would your father be wanting
you to do?" When I continued to hunch my shoulders in
grief, Jim said angrily, "I'm not going
to sit here watching you go on like this." So saying, he
left the house, slamming the front
door behind him. One hour passed, two hours,
three. My stomach churned.
When Jim eventually returned to the house, he
held me tightly and said, "Joan,
sweetheart, I promise I'll never, never,
do that again."
Yet what he had done was precisely what
I had needed. I pulled myself together and focused
again on the great opportunity being given to me.
At the end of March I went alone
to Chicago, where I was treated like royalty. An
enormous black limo met me at the O'Hare
airport. I'd half expected Bob, the
limo driver, to kiss my hand. As I sat
back on the luxuriant leather cushions while
we positively glided to the Hyatt Regency
Hotel, I said aloud, "Oh, if only the
girls back home could see me now!"
The hotel's bellhop took me to my suite
and walked me around the furniture. I gaped like
a country cousin on discovering a big screen
TV, three telephones, and a bathtub I could
have drowned in. I drew back the curtains and
tried to imagine the view. I pretended I was
looking at the Sears Tower, taller than New
York's Empire State Building.
Since I had three hours to wait before
attending a formal dinner, I spent the time bathing
and phoning Jim, Joy, and Mom.
Unfortunately, Louise was not at home, so I
couldn't brag about the limo.
Mike Weintraub, whom I'd not yet met
but to whom I had spoken many times on the phone
since he had left me the "absolutely
terrific" business card in the Tucson church,
and Mickie Hoesly, a woman of exceptional
warmth and charm, conducted me to the banquet dinner.
Here I shook a lot of firm hands. Toasts were
drunk to success.
The next day I was taken to a small theater
within the hotel complex. Thankfully, I was free
of nerves, even though I now knew that within an
hour or two I could be sent back to Tucson
with a "thanks for coming letter, but you're not quite what we
need." Some of the other candidates were given this
advice.
Without blushing and committing the sin of pride, I
cannot repeat what Richard Sullenger said to me after
my presentation. Suffice it to say that I was
selected to speak in June in Boston
on the main platform before five thousand top
business executives from five continents.
The Million Dollar Round Table proved
to be the start of my professional career as a
public speaker. I stopped pinching myself only
when I enlisted the help of Ione, my former
Braille School colleague, now living in
Tucson, to help me choose a dress for the big
event. I'd made up my mind on the kind of
dress I wanted. It had to be feminine but without
being fussy. Ione and I found the dress in a
Tucson store. It was an emerald green silk
creation, long-sleeved and softly draped.
"Made solely for you," enthused Ione. "As
you look now, the ancient Greek sculptors
would have sought the most flawless marble to sculpt you
wearing that dress."
I laughingly hushed Ione into curbing her
enthusiasm.
Jim and Joy accompanied me to Boston. The
production company had carefully worked out every
detail of the presentation. The only piece of
furniture on the stage would be a stool, upon which
I could sit "if my legs became rubbery," said
Mickie Hoesly. To make sure I found my
way to the stool, they had, on Jim's suggestion,
tacked down a strip of broad white tape
stretching from the stage wing from which I would enter. My
peripheral vision would allow me to follow the white
tape to the stool.
I was behind the curtain, just offstage, as the
emcee made his excellent and humorous
introduction.
I accused Jim of feeding me butterflies for
breakfast. "Can't you stop them fluttering in my
stomach?" I pleaded.
Jim's light laughter helped, as did an
encouraging peck on my cheek, and as did
Joy's "Good luck, Mom."
I started walking along the taped pathway. The
blazing spotlights seemed to be brighter than the
Arizona sun. I was unable to see even one of the
thousands of men and women out there in front of me.
They had not been told that I was blind nor were they
to learn this until I was five minutes into my
speech. Two huge closed-circuit TV
display screens on each side of the proscenium
arch were blowing my image up to King Kong size.
In the course of the welcoming applause I
asked myself what on earth was an ordinary
woman, a preacher's daughter from Bakersfield,
doing in this distinguished company. Determinedly, I
put aside the alarming thought that ten thousand eyes were
now focused on me, and ten thousand ears were
awaiting my first words.
I've since reviewed the professionally
produced film of my speech, and I've cringed
at my occasional nervous giggles. I choked a
couple of times--just for a second or two--when I
spoke about the moment when Dr. Corbett had
told me that the damage to my eyes was
"irreversible," and when I spoke about Joe's
valor.
"And now," I said in concluding, "I'd like
to introduce you to my new husband, Jim, and to my
daughter, Joy."
A moment more and they were there beside me--these two I
loved above all others. A clatter of
briefcases falling to the floor; applause
surging toward me, a great wave of applause that
went on and on and on.
Jim shouted into my ear, "They're on their
feet. Everyone in this huge auditorium is
standing up." Later someone said to me, "Joan, you
just floated off that stage." This wasn't
accurate. Jim and Joy led me carefully down
the steps to our seats in the front row.
I was crying now, and without shame. This can't be for
me! I thought. Perhaps the President of the United
States has just arrived. Perhaps ...
Jim had to shout again into my ear. "The TV
cameras are still focused on you. Smile, for
Pete's sake, smile!" I wiped my tears,
which just went on flowing.
Mike Weintraub hugged me. Mickie
Hoesly tearfully hugged me. Unknown others
hugged me. "Stand up again, Joan," they
instructed. "Wave to them. They won't let you
go." I obeyed. Applause surged once more.
Later I was told, with what truth I don't
know, that it was the longest applause given to any
speaker in the sixty-six years' existence of the
Million Dollar Round Table convention. I
can't think who held all those stopwatches!
Eventually the emcee was back at the
microphone. He said, very simply, "Joan,
you've just made five thousand new friends from all
around the world."
Later, in other halls of the convention center, many
of these new friends came to invite me
to speak. I was given invitations to travel to and
speak in cities across America. Invitations were
given to me to speak in Australia, Canada,
South Africa, and Asia.
Even as I now prepare to parcel up the
manuscript of this book to mail it to my
publishers in New York, I am still recovering
from jet lag, for I've just returned from speaking
engagements in Malaysia and Singapore.
My publishers tell me that before the year is out
they will be taking me to the major cities of the
United States to speak to many millions of my
fellow countrymen and women--children, too, I
hope.
What am I going to say? What I want
to say--and so urgently--is that while none can know
what challenges lie ahead, or how steep will be
the path, how rough the terrain, how often we may
fall and be hurt, we must not give up the
striving.
In quiet moments I've recalled that
mystical dream wherein I saw a steep mountain with
its golden crest. In this dream--or in my
recollection of it--the craggy, sunlit summit
sometimes seems to have the form of a citadel there for my
taking--so long as I have the humility to ask the
Guide for His footholds and the courage to trust
Him.
When we think of twilight, we think first of the
mellow or sometimes melancholy hour that heralds
night. We tend to forget that twilight also
heralds the dawn.
In our journeying down the years not one of us can
avoid those darkening times when the color of our
lives bleeds to gray--times when we are shadowed
or companioned by pain, fear, grief, or a
sense of helplessness. Yet, as certain as the coming
of every dawn, there's the hour when darkness breaks,
when life itself is bright and colorful once more.
How often in my own dawn's brightenings has my
heart cried out--sometimes, indeed, my throat and
lips, "Ah there, up there, I see my pathway
once again!"






And a Postscript

Tom Sullivan, my friend who has been a
model and, indeed, a hero figure for those of us
who are disabled, wrote an introduction to this
book. It seems to me, then, not inappropriate
that I end my story in his company once again.
Recently I was on a working visit to Los
Angeles and was staying in the home of mutual
friends. Tom and his lovely wife, Patty, were
also dinner guests.
Our hostess, Erica, had provided a
memorable meal during which much of the conversation across the
dining table was about the loss of vision and how Tom and
I had been compensated by the honing and heightening of
our other senses. Surely, for instance, Tom's
taste buds and my own gave us a gourmet's
appreciation of the roast lamb.
We spoke, Tom and I, about our richer
experiences of touch and taste and scent and hearing.
Perhaps we should not give away all our secrets,
such as when Tom claimed, truthfully, I'm
sure, that he could fairly accurately
evaluate the personality of a stranger after a
handshake--the limp ones disclose lack of
confidence and the grip that lasts a few seconds
longer than the norm indicates a welcome's
warmth.
I talked about what a beach now means to me, of
how much more I now valued the sounds and the smell of the
ocean, the feel of the sand under my feet, and so on.
We differed on some issues, Tom and I.
For instance, was it better (or tougher) to be born
blind or to lose one's sight in mature years
(images remembered or imagination?), but we
found complete accord in believing that the passage
of time is marked not only by hours and years but, so
critically, by choices.
We both knew of people struck down by one
misfortune or another who had elected lives of
whimpering and self-pity. This was their free choice.
We spoke of others who had chosen to use the hard
knocks of life to grow, to achieve, and to find
stimulating material and spiritual rewards.
We laughed, as did all the company, about our
blunders and mishaps. Tom told an
uproariously amusing story of how his seeing-eye
dog had recently led him astray in San
Antonio, Texas. The dog, Nelson, had
been seduced by the odor of hot dogs being cooked
on an open fire on a vacant lot
by a group of hobos. Tom had sat down with the
gentlemen of the road, had enjoyed a proffered hot
dog, and had filed away yet another anecdote
for his brilliant platform speeches.
Then, while we were enjoying an exotic
dessert, I called home to Tucson on a
speakerphone and brought Jim and Joy into our
cheerful dining table conversation.
Toward the end of this exhilarating evening and while
we were now seated on deep, cushioned couches in
a firelit living room, Tom turned to me and
asked a penetrating question.
"Tell me," he said, "what is the difference
between the Joan of ten years ago, the Joan who
could see, and the Joan who is sitting next to me
now?"
"I'm happier," I said without any
hesitation.
"Happier!" exclaimed Tom, who had never
seen his fingernails.
"Much, much happier," I assured him.
From a chair on the other side of the fireplace
Patty said softly, "What a wonderful
answer!"
"Oh, but it's true," I said. "In all
my life I've never been happier--no never!"

THE END