MY STORY

As always, he was sitting by himself on the bench, away from all the screaming kids during recess. This was the only place where he felt safe and somewhat normal. A place where no one will make fun of him. It is not easy to come to school when you're different and when kids can be so intolerant and mean towards anything they don't understand.

It takes courage to come to school wearing coke bottle glasses with a rubber patch which was switched daily from one side to the other; an attempt to correct a persistent strabismus which showed up at age three. To add to his misery, this little boy was born with an adult size rear end which at that time appeared disproportionate to the rest of his small frame. A lot to overcome for a kid trying to fit in. It was easier to be alone than to fend off ridicule and comments which clearly resembled the famed Robert DeNiro line : “Are you looking at me? Are you, looking at me?”.

The desperation drove his mom to investigate a solution. She set up an appointment with one of the best ophthalmologist in 1972. His name was Professor Charasse. After a long examination, he determined that the issue could be fixed, albeit with varying levels of success. It was a delicate operation which required spending three days in total darkness with glued eyelids and a blindfold to avoid any light to get through the eyes. It was a daunting undertaking, one that the little boy did not hesitate to embrace.

At age 11, never having undergone any kind of surgery, the operating room can be a very scary place. Those people wearing gowns and masks didn't help calm the fears and the apprehension of the unknown. The procedure lasted for a couple of hours and then... When he awoke, the world he knew was gone. Nothing prepared him for what was in front of him: a pitch black deep dark abyss. It was not like closing your eyes. When you close your eyes and there is daylight outside, you see a remnant of light. In his new world, any trace of anything resembling a shape, a contour, a flicker had vanished. A black so intense, the little boy cried and was scared having lost something he unknowingly took for granted.

No one can ever prepare for the loss of sight. It is a feeling unlike any other. He had to learn how to get around, feeling every piece of furniture, every corner, avoid all the obstacles he could no longer see. He walked with his arms waving in front of him to protect himself from running into things. He was lucky that his mom was by his side and was able to be his temporary eyes, providing vision and an oasis for mobility. He remembered one day when she was walking with him outside. He could hear the birds chirping, the cars driving by, the train in the background and the cicadas singing in the trees. He could also hear some kids playing soccer nearby. His mom turned to him and said, “Look at those kids playing soccer!” She immediately realized how destructive such a simple phrase can be when he replied, “You know I can't see!” He couldn't see with his eyes, but he could cry with them. He did. Three days in a the dark seemed like an eternity.

On that next morning, he couldn't wait for the doctor to come for his daily visit. This one was going to be very special. Today, we get to take the blindfold off! Professor Charasse removed it along with the gauze which was packed underneath. He told the little boy to open his eyes. He couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, his eyelids would not open again. Not without the help of his fingers. They had been closed for so long that their muscle refused to cooperate, regardless of the desperate inputs from his baffled brain.

After a great deal of blinking and struggling, the world slowly reappeared. Blurry at first, progressively getting sharper and more beautiful than ever. Soon, his head would spin to look around the room in order to remember every detail of that day when he got to escape the dark prison that incarcerated the beauty of the world. Both adults were laughing watching the poor boy walking around holding his eyelids which would fall abruptly the minute his fingers were not there to assist. He didn't care! They could laugh because now, no one would make fun of him anymore. It turned out that the operation was a success with somewhat of a setback. The boy was born with a defect and one of his eyes was still converging faster than a normal eye should. He would need to wear glasses for the rest of his life, but without the dreaded rubber eyepatch and without people asking him where he was looking. Glasses were and are still a very small price to pay.

47 years later, I still wake up every day grateful for the gift of sight, eager to pay it forward using the rebirth of my eyes to help others overcome their own life’s challenges and burden. If it wasn’t for Professor Charasse’s dexterity and the team who assisted him that day, I wouldn’t be able to look through the viewfinder of my camera and create amazing images. I wouldn’t be able to drive fast cars around a race track to get my adrenaline pumping. I would not be able to function at all.

So this year, I wanted to do something using my creative talents and my good eyes! I wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids who may need a hero to save the day. That hero is called “St. Jude.” What St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital does every day to save lives, kids’ lives, is absolutely astounding. They deserve to be supported for their efforts and their dedication to never, never give up on a child’s care, regardless of whether the parents can pay for the treatments or not. In today’s world, that kind of heart is unheard-of and ever so refreshing.

So, I have a challenge for all of you out there. I have created a gorgeous exotic/collector car calendar to raise money benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. I put my heart and soul into creating this calendar for 2020. I am asking for each one of you who read this story to support my fundraising effort today.