Some used white canes.
Some wore glasses.
Others relied on guides or adaptive devices.
There was no single picture of what successful rehabilitation looked like.
There were simply people learning how to live as fully as possible.
I turned toward Dad.
"You know what I like most?"
"What?"
"That nobody here has to be cured to be treated like a whole person."
Dad's eyes filled.
"Exactly."
I smiled.
For twenty years, I'd wanted my sight restored.
But I had never wanted people to believe my life began only when I could see again.
I had been a student.
A friend.
A wife.
A mother.
A person with hopes, fears, talents, and dreams.
Blindness had changed how I experienced the world.
It had never erased who I was.
And now the same was true of sight.
***
That evening, Nigel took me somewhere special.
He wouldn't tell me where we were going.
