August 15 - Benchmarks

Lately, I have been thinking about some of the major events that have marked changes in my life. Possibly, this train of thought has been brought about by my recent stroke. The stroke caused changes in my normal speaking voice but it also has caused me to think a little differently. After many years of good health, I am now more aware of my vulnerability to illness or injury.

To a certain degree, we all have these benchmarks. There is the thought that some things were true before the event and others not so true afterwards. There is a dividing line that marks some sort of change. On a personal level, I can think of a few instances. One major happy event was our wedding. I was single and then Lyle and I became a couple. Just over a year later, our first child was born and we moved from being a couple to becoming a family. In both cases, life was different before and after.

Not all changes are by our own doing. My sight loss was certainly nothing that I chose for myself. There was definitely a line between the day I was fully sighted and the next day when I became legally blind. I know that other people experience change or benchmarks that can have decidedly more dramatic and traumatic changes than my own. We must all play with the cards we are dealt.

It was as I was contemplating all this that I recalled the series of White Cane Connections walks across Canada. This was a significant event for me. Lyle and I entered this undertaking way back in 2012. In fact, on this date in that year we were in Ottawa ready to share with a group of CNIB staff about my personal experiences with vision loss and also the experiences we had had on our walks. That was a great year for me. We met so many people with so many interesting stories to tell. Perhaps you are one of them reading this right now! I have great memories of the shared times, the shared challenges and the courage of newfound friends who were daily coping with those challenges. The White Cane Connections walk was definitely a benchmark for me. The people I met changed my life for the better.