One Shining Moment

[The Story Teller]

*** WARINING TISSUES NEEDED ***



Before me was my bedroom window, the white curtains as crisp and white as anything I’d ever seen

One Shining Moment

By DeAnna Noriega
Manitou Springs, Colorado

I have been blind for most of my life, but when I was a child I saw many things: the fairy-tale books my great-grandfather taught me to read when I was only three, the blue Texas sky under which I played with my two younger brothers, the flowing manes of the horses I rode around our family ranch, and something else—a fleeting vision that guided the course of my life.


Doctors diagnosed me with congenital glaucoma when I was six months old. An excess of pressure in my eyes was compressing the rods and cones of my retinas. For a long time I didn’t realize that other people saw a sharper, brighter world than I did. All I knew was that my eyes sometimes hurt terribly, and the eye drops Mama squeezed into them were little comfort against the pain. Sunlight would make my eyes ache and water. Still, my poor vision didn’t stop me from doing my chores. I made my bed in the morning, set the table at dinner, carried in the well water, and helped my parents watch my little brothers. I dreamed of one day growing up and becoming a famous ballerina or great veterinarian, just like other little girls did.


By the age of eight, I had lost all vision in my right eye despite operations to prevent that from happening. And I couldn’t make out colors very well anymore—it was like looking through wax paper. Doctors decided to operate on my left eye so that I at least had a chance at keeping what little vision I had. The day before the surgery, I took my First Communion. I knelt in a church pew, squinting against the sunlight pouring through the windows. I studied my dress, wishing I could see how crisp and white I knew it was; instead it looked dingy and gray. The Communion wafer looked fuzzy. But as I held it on my tongue, nothing else mattered besides the incredible closeness I felt to God at that moment. I’d moved beyond myself into a larger world. When I returned to the pew I knelt beside Mama and she put her hand on my head. “Father, watch over my child today, tomorrow, and always,” she murmured.



The next day I had my surgery. Even though I’d had operations on my eyes before, I was scared. But then I thought of how close I’d felt to God at my First Communion and the prayer Mom had said for me. God will take care of me, I thought.



My parents sat in my room two days after the surgery as the doctor slowly unwrapped the thick, sweaty bandages wrapped around my head. “What do you see, DeAnna?” the doctor asked.
I shook my head. Isn’t there another bandage? I wondered. I raised my hand in front of my face, but there was nothing there. “Mama, where are you?” I asked. I felt her come over and hug me.



“DeAnna, can’t you see me?”



“No,” I said. “Everything’s dark. Why?”



No one said anything. But they didn’t have to. I knew I’d never squint against the sunlight again. I was blind.



I slept most of that day and the next, until I was released from the hospital. Each time I awoke to the new blackness of my world, I longed to go back to sleep, and to my dreams, where there was still light.



Mama had decided that the best way to teach me to be independent was to keep me busy. So I helped wash the dishes and told my little brothers fairy tales I had read so many times before losing my sight. On the outside nothing had changed. But inside I felt betrayed. I had been so confident that God would take care of me, had entrusted myself totally to him when I took my First Communion, yet my worst fear had come true. Never again would I be able to see the horses galloping through the tall grass or the ripples in the duck pond or even Mama’s face. I spent hours alone in my room, crying and railing at God in my mind.



One afternoon about a week after the surgery, I was in my room. I sat on my bed and listened to my brothers running around outside, brooding that I couldn’t join them. To me it seemed a huge iron door had been slammed in my face, excluding me from the world. I was left alone in the dark. I couldn’t understand why God had done this to me. Didn’t he realize he was depriving the world of a great ballerina or wonder-working veterinarian? Why did you leave me behind, God? I asked.



All at once, the room around me came into bright focus, sharper than ever. I gasped and stared. Before me was my bedroom window, the white curtains—as crisp and white as anything I’d ever seen—billowing on the breeze like angel wings. And the sunlight that poured through the window—so dazzlingly bright it looked almost like it too was quivering in the breeze—it was right in my eyes but they weren’t watering at all.
I stood up and ran across the cabbage rose pattern of the rug into my mother’s bedroom. I saw her hairbrush and mirror on the table, the frilly edges of her bedspread, the pictures of me and my brothers on the wall. I dodged a footstool in the center of her room and ran into the dining room beyond. Mama sat at the table with her sewing machine, her back to me. As she turned around, the world went black again.



“DeAnna, what is it?” she asked. I told her what had happened, then burst into tears.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said, and held me close to her. “But I saw!” I said. Later, my doctor told Mama it was impossible I could have seen anything. But then, how could I have managed to avoid the footstool in the middle of Mama’s room?



I knew that I’d experienced something incredible, but I didn’t know why. Why had God given me one more glimpse of the world? What did it mean? Again and again I envisioned that open window, the billowing curtains, the sunlight. The more I thought about it, the more a quiet conviction rose in me. God was giving me a message that he had not left me behind. He was part of my life, whether I saw or not. In that one shining moment, he had shown me his world was still there for me, and he was beckoning me out the open window into that world and the life he had planned for me.



Now I can look back and see all the light he shone into my life after following him out that window. I went away to college and earned a degree in social science. I spent two and a half years in the Peace Corps, traveling to faraway places. I married a wonderful man and raised two beautiful daughters and an adopted son, who is also blind. Today I run my own gift shop, and when I walk around town with my guide dog, I am greeted by the many people I have become friends with over the years. And everywhere I look, the only thing I see is how much I’ve been blessed.

The above article originally appeared in the March/April 2001 issue of Angels On Earth.



Submitted by Richard