My parents knew that no school in our area could teach a child who was blind. They also knew they couldn't educate me themselves. So, they had to do the unthinkable. They had to send me away to school before I turned 5 years old.

For me, spending my first 4 years as an only child, and then suddenly being placed in a dorm with about 80 other students of all ages, was not a life I was expecting. Back then, I didn't know what coping skills were. I had a lot to learn. Fortunately, my parents had taught me how to do exactly that. The question was, could I do it?

The school didn't give me a great academic education. There were people there, however, who taught me much about who I was on the inside.

This episode touches on some of the failures and triumphs I experienced along the way.

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As a very young child, you can only know your own condition. If you can't see, you don't quickly grasp the fact that others have something you don't have. It's even harder if you have light perception, because then people tell you that you can see. But, can you? This is the complicated story about how my parents who knew nothing about blindness, and I, who knew nothing about sight struggled to finally understand and deal with the situation.

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In this story, my grandfather and I walk through my grandparents' apple orchard. In part, this is a sound painting of events that took place in the orchard each time I was there. People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. How many words does it take to describe a special sound, a special time, and the partly unwanted life-changing wisdom I learned among the apples? I kept being drawn back to that place. It wasn't just to hear the sounds. It was also to search for what I remembered and longed to change. I dedicate this episode to my grandfather: a man who was wise even beyond his many years. I wish you had known him. Perhaps when you finish this story, you will have some idea of the man who was my grandfather and also my friend.

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