"There's only one star in the sky," Judi told me as we drove along, the motion of the car lulling her 18-month-old grandson to sleep. "I wish you could see it!"
I shifted anxiously in the passenger seat. The baby was quiet in his car seat behind me. I felt that I should say something, but I did not know what to say. Judi and I had been corresponding via email for a year because of something she had seen on my Web site, but only recently had we discussed my blindness in detail. Now, on the first day I had spent with her in person, she was wishing I could see a star. I didn't know how to respond.
I had seen the moon a handful of times in my life, but never had I seen a star. Although I was curious about stars, the fact that I could not see them did not upset me. The only thing that upset me was the feeling of inferiority I sometimes had when my inability to see meant that I could not share an experience with others. As I tried to think of something to say, I wondered if Judi would be disappointed or consider me inferior if I could not see the star.
"What if we drove out in the country where there were no street lights?" Judi asked. "Do you think maybe you could see it then?"
I shifted again in my seat. She really wanted me to see this star! How could I tell her there was no way I could ever see it? Even after a surgery which had enabled me to see things I had never seen before, I still could see no more than ten feet in front of me. How could I see a star?
Reluctantly, I agreed that we could try it. It couldn't hurt anything. I just didn't want to imagine seeing something that I could not really see. Some of my friends with visual impairments had told me that they often found themselves pretending to see things they really could not see in order to please their family and friends. I couldn't do that to Judi. We would just drive into the country, and I would take a look and be honest with her about not seeing the star.
As we drove, memories flashed quickly through my mind. I remembered the first time I had seen the moon. I had been with my father, out in the driveway in front of our home. He stood behind me and put his hands on either side of my head, guiding my face in the right direction. I hadn't expected to see anything then. It was just an experiment. Instead of nothing, I had seen a pale, glowing ball. I wondered if a star would look at all like the moon.
I remembered when I first began to notice that I was losing some of my already limited vision. Things just did not look like they had looked before. I felt as though I was looking through a grey curtain. Sometimes it was more grey than others. It was this greyness which had prompted me to make an appointment with the ophthalmologist in 1991. I had glaucoma, a condition which usually affects elderly people but which many people with ROP develop during their teen years.
The glaucoma was managed with surgery and medication. However, the greyness eventually returned with a vengeance. In fact, not only did it return, but more often than not it was actually a nothingness which only the brightness of the sun at noonday could penetrate. I could no longer locate objects, even if I held them in my own hands. Frightened, I returned to the ophthalmologist and was told that my cornea was damaged from the trauma of surgery and the effects of the glaucoma. I would need a cornea transplant. Since my cornea was completely white, the doctor could not determine if any additional detachment of the retina had occurred. He felt that if this had happened, there was a reasonable chance that a procedure called vitrectomy could be performed which would result in reattachment and slightly improved vision.
Now, three months after I had had a vitrectomy and cornea transplant, I was riding out into the country to look for a star. Secretly, I hoped that perhaps her idea would prove fruitful, but I maintained a fairly high degree of skepticism.
Judi stopped the car and turned off the engine and the headlights. We got out, and I was struck by the silence of the night. I had grown up in Houston, and I could not remember a time when I had not heard the noise of passing cars, sirens, or airplanes.
We walked away from the car. Judi stood behind me, just as my father had done the first time we looked at the moon. She turned my face upwards, just as he had done, and I prepared to tell her that I saw nothing.
But what was that tiny pinpoint of light far away? I couldn't believe it! I must have been wrong. I closed my eyes and then looked again, trying to convince myself that it was not there. But there it was, shining steadily.
"Can you see it?" she asked, a bit of excitement in her voice.
I felt as if I could shout, if only my breath wasn't taken away by the inexplicable joy inside me. "I've never seen a star!" I exclaimed. "I wasn't going to let you stop the car. I didn't think I could have seen it." I embraced her, nearly bursting into tears.
Judi and I went star gazing one more night that week. I thought that I surely had imagined the star the first night. If it happened again, I would be amazed.
Again we drove out into the country. This time I was searched more independently, and again I expected nothing. I was amazed to discover two or three groups of pinpoints, more pale than the one I had seen the first night. I closed my eyes and turned them away. When I opened them again and turned back toward the place, the groups of pinpoints shone like little groups of candles hanging from the sky. In one group, a single pinpoint shone brighter than the others, catching my attention.
When Judi and I first discussed stars, I asked her if they really had five or six points. More than anything, I wanted to understand what a star was. It did not matter to me whether I understood it by seeing it or by receiving an explanation. She answered that they appeared that way if she squinted. Her matter- of-fact answer to my question and willingness to answer other questions I had flooded me with a feeling of fellowship and removed all feelings of inferiority that came from the knowledge of my physical difference. In that moment, I realized that whether or not I ever saw a star or even another object, I was a part of God's family and I could be amazed at His handiwork along with everyone else.
For many years I found it difficult to sing the lines of a certain hymn:
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to the.
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Judi's willingness to explain the appearance of the stars freed me to praise God for His works in the heavens. But even more amazing than the heavens is the understanding that He knows the desires of my heart and blesses me every so often with a gift I never expected to receive.