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back Mother
and Son Write Book About Blindness
By AMY FLOWERS
UMBLE
FREDRICKSBURG, VA - My mom is blind, but that
is okay.
She can do all the same
things your mom does every day.
Last year, Robert Martin
wrote a poem about his mother's blindness. Growing tired of watching
people stare at his mom, Robert used rhyme to deal with his feelings.
Katrilla Martin was
impressed with her son's poem.
But it might have become
just another piece of paper stuck to her apartment door, where a
collection of Robert's drawings, schoolwork and spelling tests hang
next to notes from his teachers and a sign about the National
Federation of the Blind.
And then Katrilla, a
University of Mary Washington student, got an assignment to write a
children's book.
She could have come up
with her own words, her own lyrical, simple text just right for
children.
But she already had the
words perfect for a children's book: Robert's poem.
And the topic was close to
her heart.
Katrilla started losing
her sight in 2002 as a result of a rare, degenerative eye condition.
"I didn't see it as an end
to my life, just learning to do things differently," she said.
But as her vision grew
more and more cloudy, even simple things became difficult for Katrilla,
now a single mom and Fredericksburg resident.
The hardest part was the
way people treated her.
Robert said people
sometimes thought she was weird or dumb.
From the beginning,
Katrilla became passionate about educating people about blindness. She
often showed up at Robert's school to tell his friends there's nothing
wrong with being blind.
"I prefer to educate
children, because they're a lot more open-minded than adults,"
Katrilla said. "It's hard for [adults] to believe that you can get on
with your life. But children see that you can deal with blindness and
go on."
Katrilla learned that
lesson herself while attending training at the Colorado Center for the
Blind last year. She went through independence training, learning
braille and life management skills.
She also went skiing,
white-water rafting and rock climbing.
Robert visited Katrilla
for the summer. What he saw both astounded and comforted him.
In his poem, Robert writes
about how proud he was to see his mom skiing down a Colorado mountain.
After seeing her whiz down the hill, a seeing guide on either side of
her, Robert knew his mother really could do anything.
He no longer felt shy
about her or worried that people would think she was weird.
He wrote the poem and
talked openly about his mom. Robert says his friends are now sometimes
curious but never rude.
He hopes that when other
people read his words and see his pictures, they will become more
comfortable with blindness.
Katrilla's professor Dale
Wright said Robert and his mom picked a perfect medium to teach
people.
"Books are a way of
opening up the world to children, helping them explore worlds and
issues that they might not be able to explore," Wright said. "It gives
us an in, a way to open a dialogue about certain issues, certain
topics."
Wright, an assistant
professor of education at UMW, said Katrilla and Robert's book, while
geared toward children, can teach people of all ages.
"I even learned some
things," Wright said.
Katrilla hopes the book
will help her with her future plans to become a guidance counselor for
blind children when she graduates with her master's in education from
UMW.
Under the pictures drawn
by Robert and his words typed in large print, Katrilla printed Braille
on label tape. That way, her blind students would be able to read the
book and see that "blind people, if given the opportunity, can do as
well as their sighted counterparts," Katrilla said.
She plans to work in
Colorado after her graduation, because the transit system (a
near-necessity for a blind person) is better and there is a greater
awareness.
"I would love to stay here
in this area and work with blind children, but I would spend a third
of my money in transportation," Katrilla said.
Date published: 2/16/2005
link to article in The Free Lance Star
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