Another Role Model

Back last September, I wrote about how difficult it is to find adult role models for a child like Ashley - people who are deafblind but who are also successful, happy members of society. I told you about Nancy Brown, a woman who is deafblind and who is very happy with her life and with herself just as she is.

Well, I have found another role model - a young woman living an exciting life in New York City - a young woman who is deafblind, but who refuses to dwell on that. In her words, "If you were in my shoes, you’d do the same thing. If these were the cards you’d drawn, you’d play them. You would." According to the author of an article in New York Magazine about Rebecca Alexander, who is being interviewed while she prepares for a party, "She grabs a scarf and waves me out the door, past her cane. Her friend,Tony loudly yells good-bye. While she hails a cab on the corner, I tell her about a poll that says Americans are more afraid of blindness than of AIDS, cancer, and heart attacks. She looks dumbstruck. “Cancer? For real? I don’t get that. Really, it’s not that bad.”

I don't know Rebecca Alexander but she reminds so much of my Ashley. Here is a link to the New York Magazine article (Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights). It's long, but an extremely interesting read.