Meet One Remarkable Woman Who Overcame Her Adversity With Blindness…
and you can overcome your adversities, too, by discovering who you are!
Life was simple in the 1950s in Blackshear, Georgia, a small town in the southeast, where I grew up. I had dreams of being a movie star but my parents had other ideas.
My father was the only Yankee in our little “southern” town and my mother was physically challenged with two prosthetic legs. They taught me to be realistic and courageous and pushed me to graduate from college.
I was curious about the world I lived in but not a risk taker. I knew the sensible thing for an unpolished girl like me was to get my degree, get married and teach school. I graduated from Georgia Southern in 1965 and married my college sweetheart.
We moved to the big city of Atlanta where I began my teaching career in the Atlanta public school system. My career ultimately spanned 22 years. I continued pursuing my interest in drama by directing and acting in plays in my church and community.
By 1983, around the age of 40, my husband and I divorced. I continued teaching but also decided to register in massage therapy school and then signed up for storytelling classes. It wasn’t long before I discovered that storytelling was my new love.
In the late 1980s I experienced two nearly simultaneous events that changed my path in ways I could not have imagined.
I won the Christa McAuliffe fellowship in August and lost my eyesight in September of the same year. The fellowship and the publicity provided me with so many opportunities to speak about my personal story of adversity and my passion for storytelling.
For the next fifteen years I spoke on the topics of Embracing Change and Using Storytelling as a Teaching Tool in ten states. I had no time to even acknowledge my loss of sight let alone grieve.
My mother’s example of dealing with physical challenges taught me the “forge ahead” spirit as she possessed. I did the bare minimum of time in rehabilitation and made the necessary adjustments to accommodate my traveling and speaking schedule.
I currently reside in Atlanta where I continue to find new purpose for my life and discover how much more I have to learn–and teach. Motivating and encouraging people to see their own potential continues to be my passion. My four grandchildren’s love and laughter are my inspiration.