Re: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R..blind

[Patrick Jelliffe <pbjbike@yahoo.com>]

Lea,

Your story is moving.  You faced the nightmare of any
visual artist and parent.  Thank you for sharing your
experiences and those of your family.

Regards,

Patrick


- --- lea <lea@whinydogpress.com> wrote:
> BD,
> 
> I will share a little story...
> 
> Twelve years ago I was in a car wreck. I was a
> passenger in a little MG
> convertible with the top down...a perfect mix of
> warmish-cool on a June 6
> evening. My 6-year-old daughter, Lauren, was on my
> lap when a car ran a
> light and we broad-sided it.
> 
> No seatbelts (it was before the days of them being
> law but, with the
> exception of this ONE time, I always wore one
> anyway). My head hit the metal
> encasement of the top of the windshield in a crash I
> can still hear in my
> head to this day. I jumped out of the car, put
> Lauren down, scared to death
> she's suffered a major head injury. She walked away
> with nary a scar.
> 
> I was not so lucky. As I stood up a flow of blood
> covered my white tank top
> and continued down my legs. Within seconds I was
> surrounded by people
> insisting I lay down in the street. Raising my hands
> to my head, they were
> covered in blood but I had no idea where the blood
> was coming from and no
> one would tell me. A man leaned over me...an off
> duty paramedic from the car
> behind ours...I looked in his mirrored sunglasses to
> see bloody goo where my
> right eye was supposed to be.
> 
> In the brief seconds it took for me to realize what
> I was looking at, I
> realized I could be blind in one eye. I asked the
> man standing over me if my
> eye was gone. And he simply said, "I don't know."
> 
> My eyeglasses had been cut in half by the impact and
> the top part of my
> right lens shoved up in my eyelid, cutting skin,
> blood vessels and a nerve
> (to this day I have no feeling in a portion of my
> forehead). When the
> paramedics arrived and began prepping me for my
> ambulance ride to the
> hospital, they cleaned me enough for me to know my
> eye was intact. And I
> could see out of it.
> 
> Eighty some odd stitches later, both inside and
> outside my eye lid, I was
> able to leave the hospital and go home. My vision,
> though blurry from the
> impact for several days, is now fine as can be.
> 
> And while this experience doesn't make me a blind
> person, I can say honestly
> that I came as close to being blind that day as I
> hope to ever get again.
> 
> This exchange about blind, deaf (mute, paralyzed,
> diseased, etc............)
> has served only to make me grateful for the senses
> God gave me. And for the
> senses I was fortunate enough not to lose.
> 
> Lea
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 3:56 PM
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R
> 
> 
> > Lea, I wouldn’t tell anyone that they can’t do
> whatever they want to do -
> as long as it's legal!;-) But the fact that a blind
> person can live alone,
> go to college, work for Camp Fire Girls and organize
> events, has absolutely
> nothing to do with whether that same person can be a
> photographer. Create
> something using a camera? Sure. Create pictographs?
> Sure! Why not, that
> could easily be done by touch and feel, arranging
> objects within borders in
> a way that the persons brain finds pleasing. But
> photograph in the
> traditional sense? No. No way. And to Kit - No, I
> don't think that if
> Beethoven had been deaf from birth he would have
> been Beethoven.
> >
> > What I find most interesting about this discussion
> is the fact that we are
> having it at all. In suppose I should be encouraged
> by it, and take from it
> the thought that we have come far enough in our
> battles to eliminate
> discrimination against those with what are now
> called "differences," that
> some people don't believe there are any. That some
> people have come to
> fervently believe, and insist that when all is said
> and done, there are no
> differences between us; that there are absolutely no
> disabilities that
> cannot be overcome; that we are all the same and are
> all able to do the same
> things if only we try hard enough.
> >
> > Would that it were so.
> >
> > B. D.
> >
> > B. D.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On
> Behalf Of lea
> > Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 4:19 PM
> > To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> > Subject: Re: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R
> >
> >
> > <<Do folks who can't see live in what we perceive
> as "darkness"?>>
> >
> > << Yes, Kit, they do. It's not what "we perceive"
> as darkness. It IS, by
> definition, darkness.>>
> >
> > Not according to my blind friend...completely
> blind since birth, she sees
> colors. The reason she knows is because not
> everything she sees is the same
> tone, shade, color.
> >
> > My mother spent many years volunteering here in
> Kansas City at
> CCVI...Children's Center for the Visually
> Impared...a special school
> catering to the needs of blind children. I had
> occasion to visit there often
> and it was there that I learned very few people are
> truly blind. Most blind
> people see color or tone or shade. Some see shape
> and shadow depending on
> the light. And yes, these people are considered 100%
> blind.
> >
> > You can think what you like about deaf people not
> writing, playing or
> hearing music and blind people not shooting, drawing
> or painting pictures
> but I can tell you I've not met a single blind
> person who hasn't been able
> to do anything they put their mind to. That includes
> the young blind woman
> who lived with my parents for a year as a house
> guest...the same person I
> speak of above...she went to college, lived alone
> for many years (moved in
> to my parents' home while getting her masters
> degree) works for Camp Fire
> Girls and organized many events...including nature
> walks for young children.
> She is an amazing woman. I'd be the last person
> (well, Kit and I might tie
> > here) to tell her she couldn't photograph if she
> thought she could.
> >
> > Lea
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
> > To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> > Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 1:34 PM
> > Subject: RE: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R
> >
> >
> > > ROFLOL!!!
> > >
> > > Yes, Kit, they do. It's not what "we perceive"
> as darkness. It IS, by
> > definition, darkness.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> > [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]
> On 
=== message truncated ===


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