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honest reflection no doubt of all the ups and downs we had encountered, compared with
the one lurching path along a lakeside. We paused at Kidsty for a while, ostensibly clicking
group photographs, but I wondered if others were doing both some outward gazing and in-
ner reflecting. We had begun to share snippets of our stories and I realized that along with
our backpacks, we carried the inner strength bred from loss, debilitating disease, broken
relationships, care-giving, reluctant independence, and compromise, as well as a lighter
cargo. That of having somehow cheated adversity, of rediscovered playfulness, laughter
and happiness, of being at home with ourselves, comfortable in our own skin even as our
fortunes shifted. As I scanned the horizon, I couldn't see the details of the view the way the
others could. More than a dozen years earlier I had started to wonder about my eyesight,
I could sometimes see a strange dazzle projected a few inches ahead, very small print be-
came harder to read, friends recognized me from a distance when I couldn't possibly have
seen them. For a short time I persuaded myself that my friends simply had far better than
average vision, (just as Garrison Keillor had claimed that all the children of Lake Woebe-
gone were above average). But I couldn't hold on to that denial for long; I was losing my
sight and during some periods, quite rapidly. It took over eighteen months of doctors' vis-
its to diagnose the cause, eighteen months of living with the uncertainty that this might be
multiple sclerosis, a massive brain tumor, syphilis, my own distorted imaginings, and many
other horrors. Specialists oscillated between telling me that this was most likely an inflam-
mation that would soon clear up and preparing to transplant my corneas within the next
few weeks! When a doctor finally understood that I had a cone dystrophy (a disease of the
back of the eye, the macula, resulting from the premature death of some cone cells), I was
totally shocked. All bets were off as to how far this could progress, the blur in central vision
was permanent; there was no cure and no treatment. I was the mother of two very young
children, we were supposed to live happily ever after, our fairy tale was not supposed to
follow sharp twists and turns of plot. Now, all these years later I had to acknowledge that
we had somehow written our own new and sometimes difficult story, the children had al-
most grown up. We had found a way to survive and, on good days, to flourish. Time had
passed and prospects were much better. After a string of doctors I had nicknamed ” the
prophets of doom,” I happened upon an engaging, warm-hearted specialist, who welcomed
me with stories of friends of Princess Diana, he had treated with similar problems. His en-
couraging manner helped me to switch from a kind of numb self-pity to seeing my new life
as a somewhat knotty problem that I could nevertheless pick my way through and even be-
gin to enjoy once more. He could make no promises, perform no miracles, but he did find
ways to make more use of my peripheral vision and because of that, I found ways to cope.
Over the years I had learned the painful lesson about not comparing. I don't mean that you
don't fight, struggle for the best outcome that you can possibly get for yourself and your
family, just that when the worst grief is spent, it is unhealthy to make comparisons with
how life might have been, how much easier it is for someone else. I had to embrace the pos-
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