How can we be expected to know who we really are when darkness comes in, and light fades away. This is difficult, this is hard, but remember I must, or forever feel locked in my prison of despair, alone, apart from the real world.

      How to make the ME survive becomes the central question, but the accepting of Acceptance often blocks the path. I was surrounded by friends but they still felt miles away, a blur of unreasonable demands. Would they give up on me? I tried to explain the horrors I was going through, I talked and I talked, but their fear and disbelief remained. What am I doing wrong that no one seems to understand what I am going through. Perhaps I cannot speak clearly. Perhaps I am still too afraid. No wonder they still have the nerve to expect me to do I can no longer do. Pick up the stone of Acceptance, they say. How can I?

      I was somebody before most of my right eye died, but now that somebody is lost and has to be found, born again! Once strong and full of hope, with a zest for living life at it's fullest, I feel reduced to a negative shell, a person full of anger, fears, self-pity and isolated from the world. What a portrait! Imagine a camera. What a picture one would get! Where is the zingy problem solver, free spirited, joyous and easy going, empathetic to the plights of others, who could face challenges and overcome them in a blink of an eye. Where is that eye? Where is the "I" I can no longer remember?

      I turned my back on the insurmountable roadblock of Acceptance, wondering where to go next. Perhaps if I retraced my steps, relived my past, I might come upon elements of the dynamic, strong me. Perhaps I might discover new flares to light my way, fresh hopes to hold onto tightly and, above all, to keep me safe.

      I started walking down a path I had seldom used before, a path of reflections, of memories of what I once was, memories of a young woman backpacking through Europe on 10 dollars a day. Was I that determined? You bet I was! Yes, I did walk along the banks of the Seine, through cathedrals and into museums. I hiked through the Alps, tasted new foods, smelled fields and fields of flowers, met absolutely wonderful people who taught me new languages and customs. This was the real me, the passionate adventurer, and it sure taught this girl a lot!

      Is it really true that I was once so strong and full of hope, too full of energy and independence to stay put? I devoured books, music was a passion, never enough art to be seen. I raised chickens, ducks, and even a goose or two. I won tennis championships, I paddled canoes, rambled through woods collecting wildflowers, made bonfires and sang songs with family and friends.

      Where is the young girl who once was, that teenager paddling across the lake, determined to make it to the regatta on time. Yes, she did win the race and stayed up too late square dancing until her young feet ached. On the edge of that same path sits a mother with not enough eyes to take in all the beauty of the first baby's angelic smile. Then the child becomes three children and could I ever be creative at turning myself into four people at once!

      You marry. You marry a family to add to your own. You take on their problems, you listen, you help, you get better at it. Skills develop, the variety of problems is staggering. First thing you know, the kids are no longer kids and you're the one returning to school, putting a professional framework on this talent for helping others you have unknowingly developed. A hesitant choice begins to coincide with what was obviously, all along, an unsuspected goal.

      I accepted direction, even though I had always been free. I learned to work on a team I did not always lead. I accepted and embraced the suffering of others. I helped and supported them as they took it step by step, day by day. Now the time has come to do for myself what I realize I have willingly and happily done for others all my life, as all of us do. I may have to do it differently, but I will do it. Now the time has come wherein I must learn to give as much to myself as I did to others.

      What I no longer see, I will sense, I will feel, I will touch, I will smell, I will hear, I will taste, and I will relish as I relished every stage of my life, grumble as I did from time to time, as we all do. The color of life will not fade, it will turn to music; the shape of life will not wilt, I will embrace it; the texture of life will not wear, I will feel and caress it. I have given life so much, surely it owes me that! I shall claim it, nothing will stop me!

      I will never again accept to separate myself from the Me I am, and whom I rediscovered on the path of memory, a path I had never before considered a valuable part of my life, busy as I was living in the present.

      The past memories, how I sought them now, not just to wish for them, to wallow in them, but to remember how, when as a toddler I stumbled, I picked myself up again, to remember how, as a forlorn heart broken teenager, I found new hopes, dreamed of new joys for tomorrow. To recall how, when times were rough, I battened down the hatches and sailed on. And what was I facing now, if not new beginnings? A different life was ahead of me, a challenge to be Me again, and I was armed with new hope.

      With these new found hopes, I now prepare myself for the future. The ordeal isn't over yet, there is another eye to go, but who knows for sure? After all, I am just a retinal degenerate with all it implies.

      Maybe you also know of a path you can go down to find Jolts of Hope of your own. Be brave. My own path was difficult, but I followed it anyway, because it was so absolutely necessary