“I have macular degeneration.  I guess I was in my seventies when it started.  Now I can see you’re there, but I can’t see your features or anything.  Last year I could see facial features.  Now I’m lucky to see heads separate from the body.

In the beginning what happened was I wasn’t seeing good enough to stay in my lane.  I was crossing over into the lane next to me on old back roads out in the boondocks.  Um, that’s not so good. [laugh]  The day I found out, I did it three times on the way home from church…way over on the other side before I realized I was there.  So I decided not to drive anymore.  Then I went out and did some screaming outside for a while.  [laugh]

I felt very sorry for myself.  I went through a period where I kept feeling sorry for myself.  Then my social worker talked me into coming to camp.  I met people who of course couldn’t see anything.  One man couldn’t see light and yet he was baking his own sweet potatoes and fixin‘ some of his own food.  I thought if he can do that and he can’t see light, I better not feel sorry for myself.

I still have pity parties, I do.  I have some self pity parties, but I try not to have them when anybody is around.  [laugh]  I just have myself a good bawlin’ session and get it over with.  But life can be joyful, especially when you have a family that loves you and helps you.

I wanted to plant potatoes this year.  Of course I can’t see the difference between a weed and a plant anymore.  [laugh]  So, my son, he cut potato up for me and he planted it for me.  Just recently he harvested them for me.  [laugh]  So I had my little garden, but I didn’t have a thing to do with doing any of it.

I find that lately, I find myself just sitting there staring into space.  I gotta break myself of that.  ‘Cause that can get very bad, very habit forming.  Then you go down hill, and you get depressed.  Oh, I don’t wanna do that.  Life is too short to go through it depressed.

Keep your life interesting.  Keep activities that you can do that stimulate your mind.  And try not to be around depressing people ‘cause depressing people can pull you down into depression…if you’re not careful.”